


The Three Kings: Strike

by AlcatrazOutpatient



Series: Three Kings Series [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 22
Words: 140,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8481913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlcatrazOutpatient/pseuds/AlcatrazOutpatient
Summary: We survived.  They came for us, to destroy all that we have been trying build over the last five years, and they failed.  San Francisco still stands strong.
But this is not over.  Not by a long shot.
They’ve taken our friends.  They’ve taken our families.  The truth has been covered up and altered to fit their stories, but we remember.  We always remember.
We are taking back what was stolen from us.  They have been hunting us for centuries, but today we strike back.





	1. Prolgue: The World As We Know It

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mage history is a controversial topic amongst many wizarding historians, with some refusing to even believe that it is a worthy field of study at all. And while it is true that there is very little about mages that has been published, most of those books are heavily biased and describe them as vicious, solo creatures with nothing but murder on their minds. In his book, The Mage Menace , author James Andrews puts forth the idea that mages are an offshoot of wizarding magic that went terribly wrong, possibly through experimentation with soul-based magic. There are a few who believe that mages have been wrongfully persecuted throughout history, though these people are usually told to keep their mouths shut or risk being whisked away in the middle of the night for being blood traitors. But regardless of the beliefs of wizarding kind, one thing about mages can be said for certain: mages existed in the early 1600s. And they hated us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): Golden Gate Park belongs to the City of San Francisco.

**The Statute of Secrecy: A Necessary Sacrifice or Massive International Conspiracy?  
** Author: William Arthur Weasley  
Written in 2013

**Table of Contents**

**1\.   Introduction  
** **2\.   The International Confederation of Wizards  
** 2.1 Questioning the Statute  
2.2 Constructing the Lie  
**3\.   The Department of Mysteries  
** 3.1 The Pen and The Sword  
**4\.   A History of Mage Craft  
****5\.   Conclusion**

**Introduction**

In her book,  _ A History of Magic,  _ world-renowned magical historian, Bathilda Bagshot, credits the enactment of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy as the saving grace of wizarding society.  She cites the muggle-instigated ‘witch hunts’ of the early fifteenth century and the reluctant truce that existed between muggles and wizard-kind in the seventeenth century as proof that, without it, a war between the two cultures would have been inevitable.

Each year, young witches and wizards are taught this simple, indisputable fact during their first magical history lessons.  They are told that the Statute was created to protect them from muggles, who had always been particular afraid of magic.  And while it is true that there were some wizards that fell victim to muggle execution, it is odd that they are mentioned in Bagshot’s text as a mere afterthought.  In fact, it is the case of Wendelin the Weird, an eccentric witch who enjoyed being burned so much that “she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises”, that is mentioned as the first and primary example, while the rather horrific stories of Lisette de Lapin, Ser Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, and others like them, are written of in the final few sentences of the chapter ( _ A History of Magic _ , 1947, issue 1).

It was in my fifth year of Hogwarts when I first pondered the oddities of Bagshot’s works, not knowing where this path of thought would eventually take me.  After nearly three years of research, I believe that I have discovered what might possibly be the greatest cover-up in the history of the wizarding world.

In this essay, I will be outlining my findings and hypotheses surrounding the truth about the Statute of Secrecy, why it was truly created, and what are the secrets it might be protecting.

**The International Confederation of Wizards**

The International Confederation of Wizards is an organization that was created in 1683 to discuss the creation of a law known today as the Statute of Secrecy.  However, the Confederation back then would not be considered ‘international’ by today’s standards.  At the time of the signing of the Statute, the Confederation had members from the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Russia, and other western European countries, but nowhere else ( _ A History of Magic _ , 1947, issue 1).  But what is even more interesting is the list containing the names of the original founding members of the Confederation.

_ Article 1 - Taken from  _ Kings and Blacksmiths _ by Tiberius Crouch, Published 1701 _

The Coalition of Sacred Brothers  
1682

Theodoric Abbott  
Peniculus Black  
Osmund Bulstrode  
Aloc Flint  
Ashton Greengrass  
Enzo Lestrange  
Malcolm Longbottom  
Cyamus Malfoy  
Solomon Ollivander  
Darian Parkinson  
Boline Prewett  
Joreu Rowle  
Calillo Selwyn  
Olbie Slughorn  
Francis Weasley

The Coalition of Sacred Brothers was made entirely of members of Cantankerus Nott’s Sacred Twenty-Eight (a group of twenty-eight families able to trace their wizarding history back to the time of Merlin).  The Coalition was known for the promotion of mage hunting, a now-dead practice that involved the murder of suspected mage children and their muggle families.  But while the Coalition had been founded centuries ago (no specific date is known), it is this list that is of particular intrigue, for it is the Coalition’s final list of members just before it was dissolved in the fall of 1682.  To date, there is only a single copy of the book it was published in,  _ Kings and Blacksmiths _ by Tiberius Crouch, that has survived to this day and can only be found in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library.

Which makes you wonder: why would such a list be considered ‘Restricted’?

The truth is surprisingly easy to figure out.  As it turns out, Theodoric Abbott, Osmund Bulstrode, Aloc Flint, Enzo Lestrange, Cyamus Malfoy, Solomon Ollivander, and Boline Prewett made up seven of the thirteen members of the Confederation in December 1684, right before it was opened up to other members of the European wizarding community and gained its dubious ‘international’ status.  It is also known that sometime between the spring of 1683 and the winter of 1684 that the first draft of the Statute of Secrecy was put to paper ( _ The Confederation: An Overview of a Global Power _ , 1856, issue 3).

What that means is that since the members of the Coalition of Sacred Brothers formed the majority of the members of the early Confederation, they were able to control exactly what became the original regulations of the Statute of Secrecy.  However, when the Hogwarts Library was contacted about the whereabouts of the original draft, all access to it was denied, regardless of permission that was given by the Headmaster.  Upon further investigation it was discovered that the first draft of the Statute of Secrecy is now in the possession of the Department of Mysteries.

Questioning the Statute

Knowing that the Statute of Secrecy might have originally been created by a group of people known for their hatred of mages, the decision made by the early Confederation to separate wizarding society from that of the muggles is suddenly put into question.  Was the Statute originally put into place to stop a war?  Or was it something else?

According to our own history, the seventeenth century was a troubled time.  Not only was it a difficult time period for muggle-wizard relations, it was also host to a particular brutal goblin rebellion in 1612.  For a period of about five weeks, goblin hostiles occupied Hogsmeade’s Three Broomsticks Inn and killed over a dozen people ( _ Sites of Historical Sorcery,  _ 2004).

Little is known about this particular goblin rebellion - the goblins’ motives remain a mystery to even the great Bathilda Bagshot.  “Most historians argue that it was the lack of goblin representation in the Wizengamot,” Bagshot tells us, “though others have postulated that it was retaliation for a joke made by the Appleby Arrow’s Keeper, Jape Phillips, about stripping them of magical rights” ( _ A History of Magic _ , 1947, issue 1).

Or maybe it was something else?  The goblins blamed for the attack supposedly caused an earthquake that leveled the inn (it was since been rebuilt), though goblins are not known for naturally possessing such powerful earth-based magic.  And while the records about the incident remain spotty (in fact, there is no record of the event written prior to the year 1703), the ruins of the old inn have supposedly been excavated and fully explored by nameless historians and Curse-breakers who never came up with a solid answer ( _ Sites of Historical Sorcery, _ 2004).  So the question remains: how did the goblins do it ?

Could the answer be as simple as, they had an ally?

But who could it have been?  Goblins and wizards were at each other’s throats, as the goblins had recently been enraged to discover that the Sword of Gryffindor had resurfaced and not been returned to its rightful owners (those familiar with the lore of the Sword know that it was crafted by the goblin King, Ragnuk the First, for Godric Gryffindor, though according to goblin beliefs, it was stolen from them).  There is no way that they would side with wizard-kind after that.

But what about mages?

Mage history is a controversial topic amongst many wizarding historians, with some refusing to even believe that it is a worthy field of study at all.  And while it is true that there is very little about mages that has been published, most of those books are heavily biased and describe them as vicious, solo creatures with nothing but murder on their minds.  In his book,  _ The Mage Menace _ , author James Andrews puts forth the idea that mages are an offshoot of wizarding magic that went terribly wrong, possibly through experimentation with soul-based magic.  There are a few who believe that mages have been wrongfully persecuted throughout history, though these people are usually told to keep their mouths shut or risk being whisked away in the middle of the night for being blood traitors.  But regardless of the beliefs of wizarding kind, one thing about mages can be said for certain: mages existed in the early 1600s.  And they  _ hated _ us.

Could a goblin have gotten in contact with a mage capable of causing such a natural disaster?  It’s possible.  Mage powers are as varied as there are colours in a rainbow, so there’s no way of definitively disproving the impossibility of a mage sinking the original Three Broomsticks ( _ The Mage Menace, 2007) _ .  But the real question is why.

And again, the answer is simple.  One only has to look back at the membership list of the Coalition of Sacred Brothers.  Ashton Greengrass’s mother, a leading member of the previous Coalition, died in 1612 and to this day, her grave remains empty ( _ Our Roots Touch All: A History of House Greengrass, _ 1957, issue 4).  And considering that this occurred in the days before the separation of the muggle and wizarding worlds, it is not a stretch to say that the Goblin Rebellion of 1612 was organized with the help of a mage attempting to get revenge on a woman who may have been openly plotting to have him and his muggle family killed.

But why does this matter?  It means that the Coalition had just realized that their actions against mages had deadly consequences, for even though they were a broken and beaten society, mages could still take the fight to them.  In order for their war to continue, the Coalition had to ensure that they remained hidden in a place where mages could not find them.  Hence, the founding of the Confederation and the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy.

But where’s the proof?  Strangely enough, when an application was filed to visit the ruins of the old Three Broomsticks, it was denied.  Once again, the Department of Mysteries swooped in and refused to allow my research to proceed.

Constructing the Lie

In the years following the Coalition of Sacred Brothers’ transformation into the International Confederation of Wizards, more and more supporters of the idea of separation from the muggle world flocked to their sides.  Upon the signing of the final bill in 1689, nearly five hundred people had been part of the drafting process.  And after its enactment three years prior, the Confederation created the world’s first Ministries of Magic.  The Statute of Secrecy is quite possibly the most important document in the history of the wizarding world ( _ A History of Magic _ , 1947, issue 1).

And yet strangely, no one in living memory has ever seen the actual document.  There have been copies that have been made: there’s one in the office of every Minister of Magic across the globe, as well as in every wizarding library and bookstore.  But the actual piece of paper, with the original signatures and ink that changed the world, is gone.  In fact, aside from the copies that have been made, there’s no documentation of the actual paper even existing.  So as far as we know, the physical Statute might have never existed in the first place ( _ 12 Conspiracies That Will Change The Way You Look At The Ministry _ , The Quibbler, 2010).

But why lie?  Perhaps, it’s because the actual Statute (if it even exists) might contain something that the original Confederation never wanted the public to see.  Perhaps, the Statute was not signed in ink, but in blood - which would make whatever was written on it become magically binding.  One can do on for days, but assuming the Statute might actually exist, where is it hidden?

There are two possibilities.  The first of which remains with the 1682 membership list of the Coalition of Sacred Brothers.  While seven of the members went on to form the Confederation, the other eight eventually created the first Hogwarts Board of Governors.  Perhaps, the Statute resides within the walls of Hogwarts Library’s Restricted Section, alongside  _ Kings and Blacksmiths _ .  Or maybe, like the first draft of the Statute, it’s in the hands of the Department of Mysteries.

But if the wizarding world’s most famous document is a lie, what else could be?  The answer is frightening: everything.

Something is very wrong with wizarding history.  It is not something that one can spot easily and in fact takes several years of research to even notice the discrepancy.  And when I found it, I nearly didn’t want to believe it.

All of our recorded history was written  _ after _ 1692.

There are no books, no ancient scrolls - nothing beyond the year of 1692.  Even Bathilda Bagshot was surprisingly silent on this issue and refused to answer any of my questions concerning it.  She clearly knows something, but is refusing to tell anyone.

But why would this be?  There is only one explanation.  Someone is trying to hide something by erasing all that came before.

**The Department of Mysteries**

The first place to start hunting for the secrets that the International Confederation of Mysteries could be hiding is obvious.  One only has to look towards the sister organization, the intimidatingly titled Department of Mysteries: a secretive conglomeration of witches and wizards whose work is so classified that it is only through hints and rumours that the average citizen even knows that they do.  The Confederation tells us that they primarily do indepth research into magic, studying its origins and capabilities far out of the reach of the wizarding public in order to keep forbidden dark arts from ever becoming common knowledge.

However, nearly thirty years ago, the Confederation gave the Department a public face with the introduction of the mage conversion program.  This confirmed a long held suspicion amongst some wizarding historians that the mage threat had not been dealt with long ago, like the Confederation would like us to believe, but was alive and well in this day and age ( _ Department of Mysteries Unveils Mage Conversion _ , The Daily Prophet, 1992).

Now, I could write an entire essay about the effects that the introduction of the mage conversion program has had on the wizarding population, but that is not the topic that I wish to discuss here.  Rather, I would like to focus on the connection between the Department and mages, since that is what seems to be most relevant to my topic here.

Earlier on, I mentioned twice how the Department of Mysteries had denied me further research into topics that I wished to explore: once, when I wished to read the first draft of the Statute of Secrecy, which is now in their possession, and again when I wanted to excavate the old Three Broomsticks Inn.  I also postulated that the Statute of Secrecy, should it exist, could possibly reside in the bowels of the Department itself.  Adding onto the connection between the Department and mages and combining it with my theory that the Confederation was originally founded by the mage-hating Coalition of Sacred Brothers, a picture starts to develop.

If what I believe is true, that someone is trying to hide a terrible secret by whipping out all traces of wizarding history transcribed prior to 1692, then there is only one organization with the power to do that.  One that has been conducting experiments on magic since its creation by the International Confederation of Wizards: The Department of Mysteries.

But again, the real question is why?  What could this secret be that it was considered to be so heinous that the only way to hide it was to separate wizard-kind of the rest of the world and the rewrite our entire history?

The Pen and The Sword

To answer this question, one must question the very foundation of modern wizarding society.  We have been told that the Statute of Secrecy was created to prevent a war between wizarding and muggle-kind, but all of the evidence presented proves that this might not have been the case.  In fact, it may have simply been to hide certain members of the wizarding population away from the reaches of mages.

If mages are more of a problem than the Department and the Confederation wish to admit, then there must be more going on here.  In fact, could the answer to the grand question revolve around their existence?  Yes.

When trying to research mage history (which is a difficult and lengthy process in an of itself), one will undoubtedly stumble upon James Andrews’  _ The Mage Menace _ , a compilation of ten years of research into mage culture and history.  However, when exploring Andrews’ personal history, one can discover his close ties to the Department itself.  On top of not only having a mage son, Andrews works as a historical consultant for the Department in exchange for the ability to continue to publish his books on mage craft.  This is the case with several other known mage historians, such as Natasha Whicker (author of  _ Overthrowing of the Gods _ , 1850) and Trista Latner (author of  _ Trees and Flies _ , 1863).

The publication and public knowledge of mage history appears to be controlled entirely by the Department of Mysteries, which answers only to the Confederation, meaning that all knowledge of mages comes from an organization created by those who wished to see them snuffed out.  Based on this, we can confirm without a doubt that wizarding history was rewritten in order to cover up a secret involving mages.

So what’s the secret?  After a careful analysis of  _ The Mage Menace, Overthrowing of the Gods,  _ and  _ Trees and Flies _ , there is one thing that all three books hold to be absolutely truth: that mages came  _ after _ wizards.  Except, this isn’t true.  In fact, it’s the complete opposite.

**A History of Mage Craft**

According to  _ A History of Magic _ , the earliest recording of wizarding existence dates back to ancient Egypt, where the legendary Three Kings created the first wands out of acacia trees and used them during their long reign over their country.  Bagshot goes on to tell of the first magical duel that ever took place was between the three kings and a terrible sorcerer named Aknadin, though she admits that the grandeur of this battle has probably been exaggerated over the centuries and was, in all likelihood, nothing more than the two sides shooting red and green sparks at one another.  Regardless, she takes the legend of the Kings to be evidence that wizard-kind has been here since the beginning ( _ A History of Magic, _ 1847, issue 1).

I work for Gringotts Wizarding Bank as a Curse-Breaker.  This means that my job is to excavate tombs from around the world and bring back the treasures that I find to be stored in their banks.  I’m fluent in ancient curses and can translate nearly a dozen languages into English.   And as a result, I can say one thing for certain: the earliest known evidence of wizarding magic dates back to 50 BC, just prior to the creation of the Roman Empire, which is thousand years  _ after _ that which Bagshot and other magical historians claim wizard-kind had its beginnings.

In fact, it is a well known yet highly unspoken fact amongst Curse-Breakers that unless you are excavating a Roman burial ground, you are never going to find a wand.  And yet, there will continue to be tales of great magical feats painted on the walls of tombs and temples, often in conjunction with pictures of magical creatures and ancient gods (Yanni Kanas (Curse-Breaker) in discussion with the author, January 2011).  According to Trista Latner’s publication, mages “may have once been capable of a complete transformation into creatures such as dragons, acromantula, and sphinxes, all while commanding their own unique powers” ( _ Trees and Flies _ , 1928, issue 1).  This leads me to suspect that the magic that my fellow Curse-Breakers and I run across while on the job is not based in wizarding magic, but mage craft.

The knowledge that mage magic is in fact more ancient and established in world history than our own might not seem like much, but to those of pure wizarding descent, specifically those who belong to the Sacred Twenty-Eight (like those of the Coalition of Sacred Brothers), this knowledge would shatter the foundation of their surefooted belief in their own superiority.   Considering the influence that blood purity still has on our society, affecting everything from job eligibility to marriage prospects, a secret like this would be enough to bring wizarding society down to its knees ( _ Nature of Blood _ , 2002, issue 1).

**Conclusion**

A great and terrible conspiracy has unknowingly gripped the wizarding world since its very creation: the history that we have been taught since our first days of schooling has been false.  The Coalition of Sacred Brothers, an organization dedicated to the destruction of mages and their kind, decided that the complete separation of wizarding and muggle kind was the only way to ensure that pureblood supremacy could continue to reign without the knowledge that their magic had not been the first.

Whether Bathilda Bagshot and other magical historians know the truth of the Statute is not something that is up for debate.  They know, they just pretend that they don’t.  Bagshot’s refusal to answer questions about the location of the original Statute of Secrecy shows that, without a doubt, she is either aware of the situation or actively involved in the conspiracy.  My fellow Curse-Breakers are scared to reveal the truth of what we find, all but my brave friend Yanni refusing to go on record about the lack of wands in the magical tombs of the world.  I take my courage from him.  I am not afraid to tell the world what has been hidden from us.

The truth brings many questions to light, ones that we may never learn the answers to.  Were the mythical Three Kings wizards, but powerful mages with gifts that the ancient world had never seen before?  Were those in the legends that followed them, like Seth and Dragon Princess or Jono the Brave, mages as well?  How much of our history has been changed to give us a false sense of superiority?  How much to the mages of today know of the truth?

And finally, if the Statute of Secrecy, should the actual document exist somewhere, had been created by a group of people hell bent on erasing the existence of mages from the history of the wizarding world, then what could possibly be written on its pages that would be so secret that it could never be revealed to the public?  We might never know.  It might be so dangerous that we can never know.  But I want to know.  And one day, I will find the truth.

_ ***Request for publication denied, on the basis that the author has ignored all historical fact collected and studied by his predecessors and is making wild leaps of faith to fill the gaps left in his cherry-picked research*** _

* * *

 

**MISSING PERSON:**

YANNI KANAS

**Description:  
** 155 cm  
Short black hair  
Brown eyes  
80.6 kg

**Last Seen** : May 12th, 2013, wearing a white muggle shirt and jeans.

**IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL AUROR OFFICE**

* * *

 

**ponymph**

holy shit guys are you seeing what’s going on in san fran right now?  they’re saying that there’s been some kind of earthquake.

#pray for san francisco #talk to me guys?  #the internet isn’t saying anything

  
  
  
  


**ponymph**

 

guys i can’t get a hold of my cousin i’m so scared

#pray for san francisco #tea where are you? #if anyone has any information please tell me

  
  
  
  
  


**ponymph**

**false-king-fisher** said:

The entire western seaboard has lost power.  the news is saying that the earthquake took it all out but my friend in oakland is saying that there is no earthquake at all.  golden gate park is on fire and there’s sounds of gunshots.  people are massing on the beaches.  theres some kind of freak thunder storm going on now and right before it, there was some kind of light show out of a sci fi movie, like a force field breaking down or something.

  
  


what that fuck?  seriously what the fuck is going on down there? i need to get to a computer or something right now.  i’m blogging from my phone and crying in my boss’s office and he doesn’t know anything either.  he’s trying to call one of the firms down there.  apparently someone he went to law school with lives in san fran and he can’t get through either

#ask #false-king-fisher #pray for san francisco #if anyone has any information please tell me #i’m so scared #you have no idea

  
  
  
  


**ponymph**

oh thank god my cousin managed to get in contact with me.  she and her girlfriend are alright but they’re at the hospital and there are so many people who have been hurt. no news yet on my boss’s friend.  don’t watch the news it won’t tell you the truth.  this is not over.

#pray for san francisco #power in unity #we know what happened #we remember

* * *

 

**Vivian** @retrobot  
#SFSurvivorCheckin  I’m okay. 

**Vivian** @retrobot  
#SFSurvivorCheckin  If anyone has any information on @spiderweb, please let us know.  He’s currently MIA

**Raf** @knightlife  
@retrobot Taken while defending his family.  Regroup at @officialsetokaiba’s place tonight @ 8.

**Vivian** @retrobot  
@knightlife Christ.  He’s fourteen.

**Alister** @scorpeon  
@retrobot @knightlife  This is not over

 

 

**Leo** @bennubirb  
@rockturtle whatever you need, we can get you it within two days.

**Tea** @rockturtle  
@bennubirb thanks.  there’s a meeting tonight @ 8.  will let you know then.

**Lord Jackel** @scorpionking  
@bennubirb @rockturtle this is not over. the full force of the jackals is ready and waiting.

**Lord Jackel** @scorpionking  
@rockturtle @officialsetokaiba sending  @bluemist +20 others to help out on the ground.  should be there by tomorrow

**Cassie** @bluemist  
@rockturtle @officialsetokaiba looking forward to meeting you  

  
  
  
  


**Leo** @bennubirb  
@bluemist wreck some unspeakables for me babe

**Cassie** @bluemist  
@bennubirb (ง'̀-'́)ง

**Leo** @bennubirb  
@bluemist god I love you (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

* * *

 

tea ( **rock-turtle** ) wrote in  **power_in_unity**

**WE REMEMBER**

We survived.  They came for us, to destroy all that we have been trying build over the last five years, and they failed.  San Francisco still stands strong.

But this is not over.  Not by a long shot.

They’ve taken our friends.  They’ve taken our families.  The truth has been covered up and altered to fit their stories, but we remember.  We always remember.

If you are living outside of San Francisco, please contact me to let me know that you’re okay.  My information is in the FAQs.  Be smart.  Stay safe.  I’m going to keep you all as up-to-date as I can on what’s going on.  I’ll be contacting those listed as next of kin in our records about the conditions of your friends and family.

For those living within San Francisco, if you are able to, please come to  @officialsetokaiba ’s condo tonight at 8pm.  There’s going to be a meeting regarding our next steps.

We are taking back what was stolen from us.  They have been hunting us for centuries, but today we strike back.

EDIT: The Lady has risen.  Two down, one to go.  Creating a new tag for her, because something tells me that we’re going to need it.

Tags: mod post, we remember, meeting time, person: seto Kaiba, person: bakura, person: atem


	2. Summation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Reiko Kitamori, welcome to San Francisco. I here that you wanted to speak to who’s in charge. My name is Atem. You may speak to me,” Atem offers the witch the same polite smile. “You must be hungry, though. Here, this should help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): Gotham City Sirens is written by Paul Dini, Tony Dedard, and Peter Calloway. Wonder Woman is created by William Moulton marston, Harry G. Peter, and Elizabeth Holloway Marston. Injustice: Gods Among Us is written by Tom Taylor. The McDonald’s Corporation is founded by Richard McDonald, Maurice McDonald, and Ray Kroc. 
> 
> Warning: Destruction of home and possessions, past minor and major character death, underage sexual content, pedophilia, abuse of power, child soldiers, and homophobia.

To say that Atem is tired is an incredible understatement.  She feels the exhaustion deep in her bones, crushing her as if she was standing at the bottom of the ocean.  Her legs are shaking too much for her to even walk, her hands trembling so badly that she can’t even write.  She’s standing, regardless of those facts, her power locking her knees and ankles in position and refusing to let her fall.

The  _ Turtle Game Shop _ has been reduced to a burnt out husk.  Her home is gone.

Bakura stands beside her, a soft gaze in his eyes.  His presence is a comfort in this moment, but he offers her no pity, only understanding, and for that she thanks him.  He knows what it’s like to lose a home as well.

Atem takes a step forwards, forcing her muscles to comply to the wishes of her mind.  Then she takes another.  And another.

The bright red front door is gone, blasted off in a magical explosion.  Atem sees the traces of the curse lingering in the doorway, a dark blue light harsh against the blackened wood.  Atem thumbs at them as she passes through and they fade away into nothing.

The well worn tile floor is covered in the ash of the books of her childhood.  She remembers curling up in the corner after her Jii-chan had closed for the night, her mother sitting beside her, and revelling in being able to read something that wasn’t a textbook.  Atem remembers seeking out that same corner after her mother had been admitted to the hospital, finding comfort in the thin pages of the  _ Gotham City Sirens _ and  _ Wonder Woman _ , and not thinking about what stage four breast cancer does to someone for just an hour.

Atem sees the magic of a Spellcaster humming steadily across the ashes.  She tugs at it slightly and pulls an image of Superman from the destruction.  But his costume is different enough that she knows that this is the version from  _ Injustice: Gods Amongst Us _ .  This is a Superman who will kill, just as she is a Yuugi capable of murder.

She swipes her hand through the air and the image disburses just as Bakura walks into the shop.

“You okay?” He asks, more out of politeness than anything else.  He knows that she’s not okay.  He of all people knows how hard this is for her.

“Do you remember when my father died?” She asks instead of answering.  He shrugs and she understands that, too.  Memory is such an illusive thing for the two of them, like trying to catch smoke with their hands.  “That last day, he was so sick that he couldn’t even keep down the watered honey the healers were giving him, but he put on his armour and climbed into his chariot anyways.  He was so delirious with fever that he missed arrow he shot, but for the first time in years, the people saw their Pharaoh strong and mighty.  And they believed in him.”

“Sometimes even when you’re not alright, you need to pretend to be, so that others can take strength in you,” Bakura nods along.  He snorts, “Damn the gods for crowning us.  We never wanted this.”

“Does anyone?”

“Aknadin,” he answers.  “And look where it got him.”

“Whatever happened to him anyways?  I remember him dying, but I do not remember how,” Atem asks.

“I killed him in his cell,” Bakura admits, before pausing.  “Seth helped,” he admits.

“My brother hated you,” she says.

“And I hated your father for the part he played in my family’s,” he says right back.  “But when he died, I hated him more than I had when he lived.”

“Why?”

“Because he died and left you in a position where you couldn’t mourn him.”  Bakura walks forwards, placing a hand on her shoulder.  “Atem, you are my friend, before we are anything to each other.  If you want to cry or scream or... _ anything _ , you know that I’ll never look down on you for it.  Because I know you’d do the same for me.”

“I know,” she cups his cheek with her palm.  Even though it’s been years since he was starving, Atem can still feel bone beneath a hollow layer of skin.  “Gods all help me, I know.”

They stay like that for a quiet moment, breathing each other in.   _ I love him _ , she thinks.   _ And he loves me. _  But now was not the time to act upon it.  It wouldn’t be fair, not until their third walked beside them.

Atem sees a text message coming in through the air, heading towards Bakura’s phone.  She speeds up the processing of her brain, reading it before the device alerts him to it.

“There’s a meeting at Seth’s home,” she tells him.  “We should get going.”

“And the witch?  Do you want to talk to her, or should I?”

Atem considers it for a second, “I will.”  Her hand drops from his face and she gazes out of the windows.  The glass is shattered, the fragments littering the streets.  “Yes, I will talk to our friend.”

“Take--“

“Mai?  Of course,” she raises an eyebrow at him.  “Come now, Bakura.  I’m not that rusty.  I still know how this game is played.”

He hums in appreciation, “The Bronze Lady, here to start her war of words.  She’ll be quaking in her boots, by the time you’re done.”  Bakura’s eyes wander around the shop, “You need anything else here?”

She takes one last look around, taking in her fill of the memories this little room held for her.  Yuugi Mutuo had grown up here, had lived her all her life.  She’d loved the  _ Turtle Game Shop _ with all her heart.

It broke Atem’s heart to say goodbye, but she had to.

“There can be other comic book stores,” she says.  “But I only have one grandfather.  And they took him, ripped him from his life here and burned it to the ground.”  Atem feels a crackle of rage course through her veins, sees the blood red lightning of her magic curling around her fists. “Let’s go get him back.”

* * *

 

“I’m sorry.”

Joey won’t stop apologizing and that’s probably what kills Seto the most about this whole fucked up scenario.  His brother is in the hands of the enemy and Joey won’t stop apologizing for it.  He wishes that he could summon up the anger and betrayal that he almost wants to feel, but there’s been too much between the two of them for Seto to place the blame solely on him.

“It’s… just stop, okay.  Don’t…” Seto can’t bring himself to look at him and feels awful for it.

“I’m gonna get him back.  I’ll fucking do it.  You know I will, Seto.  You know that, right?”

Seto gives him a small nod, “I know.”  He’s going to throw up from worry.  “I’m sorry, too.”

He can feel Joey frowning, “For what?”

“Lakewood.”  And this crossing all kinds of lines, because they’ve both agreed to  _ not talk about Lakewood _ .  “I know you didn’t want me to pull you out, but I did anyways.  And I’d do it again, if I had to.  I know you know that, just like I know you wanted to hate me for it.”

There’s a sigh and Joey rests his forehead against Seto’s shoulder, “ _ Fuck you _ , asshole.  Damn you right to hell.”

Seto buries his face in Joey’s neck so that the world won’t see him shaking.

They don’t talk about Lakewood not because of the burning warehouse or the screams of those trapped inside.  Nor do they not talk about it because of how thirteen-year-old Joey had struggled in Seto’s arms as he’d dragged the kid away, spitting murder while tears ran down his cheeks.  They don’t even not talk about it because Joey had gone limp three blocks away and  _ remembered _ , whispering, “Seth, let me go.   _ Please _ , just let me save them,” or how Seto had whispered back, “No.”

They don’t talk about it because of what had been said between them in the aftermath, when he and Mokuba had gotten Joey and Serenity set up in a motel, when he’d knocked on Joey’s door, feeling awkward and eighteen and too small for his limbs.  They don’t talk about it because Joey had answered the door, broken Seto’s nose with an angry fist, and then, for some reason, asked why Seto had never told him that he was in love with him before.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it?  That’s why Seto doesn’t have it in himself to truly hate Joey for losing Mokuba.  Because he was in love with him, had been since the first time he’d turned forty, when he’d seen Kisara and Jono standing amongst his children and realized that the fierce affection he felt for his best friend was the same as that which he felt for his wife.  Kisara had known, too, and had told him that it would be okay if he wanted to be with Jono as well as her.

But Jono had had a wife of his own then.  And the Pharaoh Seth may have been, but it was not his place to dissolve a marriage so that he could take his friend and fellow ruler on as a consort.  Atem’s relationship with the other three Kings had caused enough trouble when the topic of heirs had come up and the realm was still healing from the war against the Destroyer.  Seth had to be a good king, a stable king.  He couldn’t, no matter how much he may have wanted to.

So when thirteen-year-old Joey Wheeler breaks his nose and demands that Seto tell him why he’d never said anything, Seto had stared there dumbly until Joey pulled him inside the empty hotel room, yanked him down to his height, and kissed him.

Seto thinks to this day that he’d let Joey continue to kiss him for longer than he ever should have.  He’d ended up pushing Joey away, explaining in a rough, broken voice that despite their cycles, Joey was still too young for him, that it wasn’t appropriate, that  _ he just couldn’t _ and--

He’d seen the idea morphing behind Joey’s eyes, known that Joey was two seconds away from laying down on the motel bed behind them, spreading his legs and demanding that Seto fuck him, but it died there, never becoming reality.  Instead, Joey had leaned into Seto and damned him to hell, just like he was doing now.  And just like before, Seto had hid his face in Joey’s neck and held on for dear life.

“Together,” Seto promises.  “We’ll get them back together.”

He feels Joey nod, “They don’t stand a fuckin’ chance.”

* * *

 

Mai considers herself lucky.  Her daughter is alive and safe.  She’d sent Haley to stay with her parents back in Texas until they rebuilt.  She’s not badly hurt, her only wound from the battle being a gash in her forehead that the tired nurses had stitched up sometime around midnight.  And  _ Nomad _ only has a broken window and some dusty floors to deal with once the power comes back on.  Sure, she’ll probably loose a bunch of product from the fridge and freezers, but Duke says that he’ll be able to get Mai some generators so all and all, the restaurant itself will be fine.

But no matter what happens, Tristan will still be dead.  The orphaned kid she’d taken in straight out some New Jersey juvenile detention center will never walk through those doors again, sassing her with a crooked smile and a wink.  Mai doesn’t know how she’s going to explain to her daughter that the boy she’d sworn she was going to marry when she grew up had been killed fighting for their city.

Mai glances across at the witch who’s sitting in one of the booths by the window and clenches her fist.   _ I could do it _ , she thinks.   _ All it would take is one sound out of me and I could pulse her organs into mush. _  The witch looks so small that it’s almost easy to hate her.   _ I’d be quick about it, too.  I’ve had enough practice today _ .

She can’t, though.  There’s someone even worse in store for this witch than Mai.

The witch looks over at Mai, eyes looking her up and down, sizing her up.  Mai stares back, refusing to give a single inch.  The witch glances down at the floor and then gives her a small smile.

“Mai… Valentine, right?” She asks.  When Mai doesn’t react, she tries again, “This place… it’s yours?”

Mai raises an eyebrow, “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing.  Nothing… Just trying to make conversation,” the witch lets the sentence peter out awkwardly.  She rocks slightly in her seat, “Could I have some water, please?”

“I don’t serve people that kill my friends,” Mai snaps, placing a chef’s knife in front of her on the counter.

The witch shrugs, “Fair enough, I guess.”  And goes back to staring at the window.

“What do you think you’re going to get out of this?” Mai asks, reaching out with her mind, hoping to catch the witch in a lie, just to give her something to work with, something to pick at.

The witch doesn’t turn to look at her, keeping a calm expression as she says, “Vengeance.  Justice.  Take your pick.”

_ Truth _ , Mai scowls.   _ She’s not lying there _ .

The witch continues on, “Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not here to support your cause because I’ve been secretly rooting for you mages this whole time.  Frankly, I couldn’t give less of a damn whether you all live or die, much like I don’t care if my kind all live or die.  But we have a common enemy.  So I’d like to make a mutually beneficial alliance.”

“Which is why you want to talk with the person in charge?”  The witch nods.  Mai raises an eyebrow, “And just who do you think that is?”

“Matthew Jacques,” the witch answers without hesitation.  “Either him or Seto Kaiba.”

Mai notes this admission, realizing the witch doesn’t know about Matthew’s capture, “Why them?”

The witch levels her with a glare, “They are powerful, smart enough to hold down careers while in the middle of a war.” A sly grin splits across her face, “They’re big, strong  _ men _ .  But Jacques… he has a traditionally respectable job with a name that makes him sound like he’s white, unlike Kaiba.  He’s a leader that will bring people into the city.”

Mai almost laughs, because on the other side of the street, Atem is crossing the road while being all of five feet tall, wearing oversized clothes, her blazing red hair a complete mess against skin that’s black as night.  The Lady Pharaoh is barefoot and  _ tiny _ , looking more like a college student who just rolled out of bed and not the divine powerhouse that she is.   _ That’s probably on purpose, _ Mai realizes.   _ She wants the witch to underestimate her _ .

The witch follows her gaze, frowning as Atem pauses in front of  _ Nomad _ to look through the large glass windows.

“Who’s that?” The witch asks.

“That’s who’s in charge,” Mai chuckles, unable to hold in her laughter any longer.  The witch’s jaw actually drops in shock.

The bell above the door rings as Atem steps inside.  She smiles politely at Mai, “Thank you for watching over our friend.”

Mai hums, nodding back at her, and watches as the Lady Pharaoh walks calmly over the floor and slides into the booth across from the witch.

“Reiko Kitamori, welcome to San Francisco.  I here that you wanted to speak to who’s in charge.  My name is Atem.  You may speak to me,” Atem offers the witch the same polite smile.  “You must be hungry, though.  Here, this should help.”

Atem slides a bag of McDonald's take out across the table and,  _ oh fuck _ , that’s her plan.  Mai is genuinely impressed.

The witch frowns, looking inside the bag to examine the contents before reaching inside to pull out a Big Mac.  She unwraps it slowly and sniffs it before taking a bite.

“Thank you,” the witch - Kitamori - says after she’s swallowed.

“You’re welcome,” Atem smiles.  “Tell me, do you know what guest right is.”

The witch nods, “Yeah.  Sacred Laws of Hospitality.  It’s an old mage custom - I’m surprised  _ you _ know about it, it’s ancient.  It says that if a guest eats a host’s food at the host’s table, the guest will be protected from harm for the duration of their stay.  It’s why you offered me this, to prove that you are willing to negotiate and not kill me.”

“Mostly right,” Atem nods and places a digital clock on the table.  It reads 5:49 am.  “You see, guest right only protects a guest until dawn, which is in about a minute and a half.”  The witch stops eating.  “So, here’s what’s going to happen.  When I stop talking, you will have thirty six seconds to impress me.  Fail to do so, and I will kill you.  Do you understand?”

Kitamori nods, “I do.”

“Excellent,” Atem has yet to stop smiling and it’s honestly freaking Mai out a little bit.  She’s so glad that this girl is on their side.  “You may state your case.”

The witch takes a breath and sets down the burger, “I will tell you the location of where the Unspeakables are hiding your people, as well as answering any questions that you may have to the best of my ability, if in return, you give me a man named Maximillion Pegasus, alive.”

The clock tells Mai that Kitamori has nearly fifteen seconds left, but neither of the two women moves until the sun breaks over the horizon.  Kitamori blinks, the spell broken, and reaches again for the burger.

“Judging by the fact that I’m still alive, I assume that I’ve impressed you.  So if you don’t mind, I’m hungry,” the witch takes another bites of the burger.  Atem’s smile stays put even as she swallows down the food.

There is no warning before she strikes.  Moving faster than Mai can track, Atem smashes Kitamori into the far wall, holding her up by a single hand around her neck.  She lets the witch claw uselessly at her hand for a minute, feet struggling for purchase on the tile, before she loosens her grip just enough for Kitamori to speak.

“B-but… guest right!  You have to--”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Atem says, her face hauntingly blank.  “Guest right has not been invoked.”

“I ate your food!”

“Wrong.  Dead wrong, in fact,” Atem’s lip peel back into a haunting parody of her polite smile from before.  Her pupils are blown wide like a hawk’s and the natural curls on her head look more like bright red feathers than hair.  “Guest right can only be invoked when the  _ host _ offers you food.  I am not the owner of this establishment, Mai is.  And she denied you guest right the moment she bared her blade to you.” Kitamori’s eyes flick over to where Mai is leaning against the counter.  Mai smirks and toys with the chef’s knife that lays in front of her.

“As for the food,” Atem continues, “I don’t actually know who’s it is.  It’s probably been sitting under a heat lamp since before the Department of Mysteries first attack us.  Personally, I wouldn’t touch it with a twelve foot pole.  So, Reiko Kitamori, do not for a moment think that because you have impressed me that I will not hesitate to kill you if it becomes beneficial to me.  Do you understand?”

Atem tightens her grip just long enough to make her point before allowing Kitamori to speak again, “I understand!  I understand!”

“Good,” Atem says and drops Kitamori unceremoniously to the floor.  As the witch gathers herself up on her hands and knees, gasping for air, Atem sits back down in the booth and waits for her to recover.  “You can rejoin me when you’re ready.”

It takes a few minutes, but eventually, Kitamori crawls to her feet, gingerly touching at the bruises forming around her neck.  She hisses slightly, closing her eyes, and--

Atem does a full body twitch and the air beside her shimmers slightly.  Mai is immediately ready to jump in, because  _ something just happened _ that nearly had Bakura drop his veil of invisibility at the same time that Atem just reacted, and she’s not quite sure what is was, but she’s willing to fight regardless.

Kitamori blinks, poking again at her throat before growling up at the ceiling, “Damn it, I don’t need your help.”

“Interesting,” Atem speaks as if she didn’t just lose her composure, staring at the witch’s neck, which is now completely free of purple blotches.  “So, who in the Department of Mysteries has access to a divine weapon capable of healing?”

The witch looks a little surprised, “Don’t… don’t you want to know where your people are first?”

“Oh, we already know that.  They’re located on an island just off the coastline of Hawaii, I believe.  And while we don’t have an exact location right now, we will by noon today, along with satellite images.  So please, answer the question,” Atem smiles again and indicates for Kitamori to take her seat again.

Kitamori looks at her strangely and edges into the booth.  She pauses for a second and reaches for the burger once more.  When Atem raises an eyebrow, the witch shrugs and says, “What?  I told you I was hungry.”

Atem says nothing, leaning back into her seat, and waits.

“The person you’re talking about is the Department Head,” Kitamori explains around a mouthful of meat and bun and cheese.  “When I first met her, she went by the name of Helena Hendrix.  She’s gone through a dozen since then.”

“But Helena Hendrix is not her real name?”

“No.”

“And you never through to find out what her real name was?”

The witch snorts, “Lady, I work for the Department of Mysteries.  Lots of people don’t go by their real names.  It wasn’t exactly out of place.”

“Is Reiko Kitamori your real name?”

Atem’s question actually gets the witch to pauses.  Kitamori slowly puts down the burger and lowers her gaze, “Reiko Kitamori… Yes.  I’ve had to fight for the right to be called that, but… yes, it’s my real name.”

_ Truth _ .  Mai nods ever so slightly at Atem, signalling that the witch had not lied.

“And the divine weapon, it’s capable of healing, correct?”

“Yes,” Kitamori goes back to eating.

“What are its limitations?”

“If you know about divine weapons, than you know that there’s no such thing as a limitation,” Kitamori rolls her eyes.  “Helena can cure anything: disease, injury, even age.  I’ve seen her bring back people from the brink of death before.  The members of her inner circle are practically immortal.”

“But they are still capable of dying, if you’re quick enough,” Atem points out.  “I killed one of her people today, judging by how quickly the woman was able to heal.”

“You killed--” Kitamori hisses.  “Who?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t get her name,” Atem says.  “So, you are close enough to Helena Hendrix’s inner circle to mourn one of their deaths, and yet you consider yourself separate from them.  Tell me, just who are you to the Department Head?”

Kitamori shrugs, finishing off her burger, “I was her assassin.”

“And how old are you exactly, Reiko Kitamori?” Atem leans forwards in interest.

The witch crumples up the wax paper from her meal in the fist of her hand, “I was born on October 4th, 1877 in Kagoshima, Japan.  You can do the math to figure out how old I am.”

“Kagoshima?”  Atem’s eyes widen, “Any relation to Saigo Takamori?”

“ _ Really _ ?” Kitamori looks taken back, “I just told you that I’m a hundred years old--”

“One hundred and thirty five,” Atem interrupts her.

“Fine, one hundred and thirty five.  And your first question is if I’m related to Saigo Takamori?”

“Do you think that you’re the first person I’ve talked to who’s one hundred and thirty five years old?” Atem smirks ever so slightly.

“Well,  _ yes _ !” Kitamori looks exasperated, “Am… am I not?”

“Not that exact age, no, but we have some very interesting people living in this city right now,” Atem chuckles.  “So no, you’re not overly surprising.  Answer the question please.”

“I mean, I don’t think so.  I think my father fought beside him during the Satsuma rebellion, but…  _ seriously? _  This is what you want to talk about?” Kitamori implores.

“Of course.  Because it makes me wonder why someone who was orphaned by the Battle of Shiroyami joined up with the Department of Mysteries?” Atem asks.

The witch snorts, “No one joins up with the Department of Mysteries these days, no matter what the Seedlings might think.”

“What do you mean?”

Kitamori pulls the small box of fries from the McDonald’s bag and proceeds to dump three packets of ketchup all over them.

“I’m guessing that you’re aware of wizard born mages, since you know about the island and all.  Those three kids probably told you about it, am I right?” Kitamori asks.

“Mostly, but continue,” Atem nods.

“Well, you see, just before wizard born mages started showing up, the Department was on the decline.  Not only did no one want to join, but recruitment wasn’t really possible because most of the people already working for the Department were on these anti-aging potions and weren’t opening up positions for new people to take.  There wasn’t enough money coming in, either.  And then…” Kitamori picks up a fry and nibbles on the end before stuffing the entire thing into her mouth.  “No one knows why but you mages had this huge population boom around the 1860’s.  The Department didn’t have enough resources to contain the problem.  So Helena put a member of her inner circle in charge of figuring out a way to entice more people to join up, all while keeping the secret of how understaffed we were under wraps.”

“So what did they come up with?”

“Blaine Gerrish… he’s good at thinking outside the box.  He decided that instead of trying to retrain wizards from outside sources, the Department should simply create their own soldiers - loyal, hardworking, and most of all, willing to devote themselves completely to the cause,” Kitamori says.  “They took me when I was four, maybe five, I don’t really remember.  I was one of the older ones, though.  Usually they start at three.”

_ Truth _ , Mai thinks.   _ Truth _ .  She almost wishes to God that she could catch the witch in a lie.

“And it worked,” Atem guesses.  “The Department got its soldiers and the problem was contained.  That… brutal, horrific, but… effective.”

“Yeah.  Too effective.  You see, when I was going through training, there was only one program: the Plants.  But after what happened after Pegasus screwed up and  they carved out Gel’s brain or what they did with Tom Riddle afterwards, there were so many orphans that the Department couldn’t keep up.  So Blaine decided to split the program in two and created the Seedlings.  He put management in charge of them while he continued to watch over the Plant program.”

“You’ve mentioned them before,” Atem states.  “Seedlings.  You said that they think that they joined up, when they really didn’t.”

Kitamori nods, “Yeah.  The children are all trained together up until they’re about eight or nine years old and then they send the best ones off to become Plants, while the rest of them becomes Seedlings.  They’re the Department’s regular foot soldiers, but they’ve had their memories wiped and had new ones put in.  Blaine told me once that Seedlings turn out better when they believe that they’ve joined up out of their own free will.  It’s… some kind of psychology thing, I’ve never really understood it much.”

Atem nods along, “This Blaine Gerrish has clearly had a long time to think about--”

Atem falls silent for a few seconds and Mai imagines Bakura leaning into the blank space by her side and whispering something in her ear.

“Blaine Gerrish,” she says finally.  “He’s also gone by the name Aloc Flint, has he not?”

Kitamori startles, back going ramrod straight, “Did you just say  _ Aloc Flint _ ?”  Atem hums in response and the witch continues to speak, “As in Aloc Flint, founding member of the early International Confederation of Wizards?”

“Perhaps.  Is he also Blaine Gerrish?” Atem asks.

“I… Merlin’s beard, it would make sense,” Kitamori covers her mouth with her hands.  She blinks and answers the question, “I don’t know for sure, but… possibly.  Yes.  Actually,  _ yes _ , I’m sure - they’re the same person.”

“You seem surprised,” Atem comments.

“Surprised, no.  Just… making connections,” Kitamori confirms.

Atem nods, humming again, “Could you take a guess as to how old he might be?”

“The Confederation was set up in… 1684, I think?  He would have been about thirty five, maybe forty at the time.  So…”

“Thirty hundred and sixty nine years old, at the latest,” Atem sighs.  “That’s a long time to figure out how best to create child soldiers.”

“Yeah,” Kitamori pokes at her fries, almost disinterested.  “Yeah, that’s a long time.”

There’s a slight pause between the two of them.  Mai watches as Kitamori almost seems to deflate, her shoulders sagging from tiredness.  Atem’s smile has long since dropped.  The early morning sun casts long shadows across her face and Mai can see the bags under her eyes.   _ They’re both utterly exhausted _ , she realizes.   _ Only pretense is keeping them going now. _

“Who’s Gel?” Atem asks finally.  When Kitamori stiffens, Mai actually thinks that she’ll refuse to answer the question.  “You mentioned Pegasus in the same sentence as him.  I have to ask.”

The witch plays with her fries for several minutes before she answers, “He was my friend.  He… It’s my fault what happened to him.”  Kitamori gives up on eating, shoving the box of fires away from her.  “Gellert Grindelwald.  He and his sister were in the same batch as I was.  We decided to team up when we were in training together, so that we had a better chance at survival, at being chosen for the mission…”

The witch’s voice cracks and Mai has to take a deep breath.  It’s… emotion.  She hasn’t ever seen a witch that wasn’t trying to kill her before, so she’s actually shocked that they could even feel something like that, something like hurt, pain, or love.  It’s… Mai doesn’t really want to think about this now, so she tucks it away in the back of her mind for later.

“Pegasus… he was one of the last people to actually join up with the Department, so the people who came before him had a bit of a soft spot for him.  Called him  _ kid _ , you know?  So once they trained us up enough, they let him pick out the best Plant for the mission.”

“What was the mission?” Atem asks.

“Depends on who you were asking.  Blaine told Pegasus that he was going to take Albus Dumbledore and turn him into some kind of revolutionary leader, one that would inspire Britain into open warfare against mages,” Kitamori snorts.  “Pegasus was too young and stupid - hell, he’s still too stupid to realize that that never would have worked.  Muggles would have sided with you and they outnumber us a thousand to one.  We’d have lost, and badly too.”

“Non-magics,” Atem interrupts.

“Pardon?”

“Non-magics.  Not… what you called them.  It’s offensive.”

“What does that matter?” The witch rolls her eyes.

“You fought to be called Reiko Kitamori because whatever they were calling you before clearly offends you on some level.  The same goes here,” Atem instructs her.

The witch nods somberly, “Fair enough.”

“So if the purpose wasn’t to have wizards fighting the rest of the world, then Gerrish must have wanted to create the climate for a civil war,” Atem continues on.  “Why?”

Kitamori shrugs, “More orphans.  More soldiers.”

“But something happened.  You said Pegasus messed up,” Atem says.

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” Kitamori snorts, but it fails to cover up how badly she’s shaking.  “It was really the people who put him in charge that messed up.  They didn’t realize what Pegasus does to people that he’s in a position of power over.

“They chose Albus Dumbledore for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because his sister was the first wizardborn mage.  The girl ended up killing her mother, so Pegasus thought they could add in some kind of a revenge element into his backstory and it was going to be Gel’s job to push him over the edge.  Pegasus picked him, not because he was the best, but because he was the easiest of the three of us to control,” Kitamori pauses, wiping the tears away from her eyes with the back of her sleeve.  Mai has yet to catch her in a lie.  “They gave Gara, his sister, to the Labs, told them that if he went off track that they’d kill her.  And Pegasus… he was going to keep me because I was his  _ favourite _ , but I wouldn’t let him.  I would have rather died, but then Helena took me in, I didn’t question it.  I was just so happy to get away that I just did what I was told.

“But then Gel kept acting out, kept trying to get caught and throw the mission before it all began.  He even got expelled from Drumstrang, in the hopes that it would help, but…” Kitamori is crying in earnest now.  “I told them, back when we were kids, that we could overthrow everything, that we could expose the Department and show the world what they were doing.  I was so  _ stupid _ , it’s all my fault.”  The witch tries to compose herself, taking several deep breaths, “They placed a handler on Gel, told him that if he went any farther off mission that they’d give Gara to Pegasus.  And he tried to, tried so hard.  But he and Albus, they were in love and Gel was going to tell him everything--”

“Reiko,” Atem reaches across the table and wraps her fingers gently around Kitamori’s wrist.  “Reiko, listen to me.   _ You were a child _ .  None of this was your fault.”

“Except it is!” Kitamori shouts, pulling her hand back.  “I couldn’t let them give Gara to Pegasus.  I just… I couldn’t let him hurt her!  Not the way he hurt me.”

“What does Pegasus do to people he’s in a position of power over?” Atem whispers, as if she knows the answer but is afraid to hear it.  Mai’s afraid to hear it.  She thinks of her daughter, only five years old, thinks that Haley cannot live in a world where men like Maximillion Pegasus are allowed to live.

Kitamori rocks in her seat for a whole minute before saying, “Pegasus likes little girls.”

_ Truth _ .  Mai wants to throw up.

“They were going to de-age Gara, so she’d be exactly how he likes them,” Kitamori keeps talking, keeps saying these horrible truths.  “So when Helena told me that Ariana Dumbledore couldn’t live to see the next day, I killed her so that didn’t happen.  But then they’d already pulled the plug on the mission, carved out Gel’s brains and reprogrammed him to become this… cult leader hell bent on killing people.  He would never have hurt Albus otherwise.  The only good that came out of it was that they got Pegasus away from kids.  Helena promised me that they’d never let him near children again, if I just did what I was told.”

“Except they did,” Atem supplies.

Kitamori nods frantically, her eyes closed, “It was years later, after he flunked out on finding Flamel.  He invented something called the conversion program, where he’d take wizardborn mages and try to turn them into witches and wizards.  It was so stupid because it was never really going to work, but it made the Department a lot of money.  But I knew, the moment that I heard they were letting him near children again, I just knew…

“When people talk about the conversion program, they always talk about the first two: Gilderoy Lockhart and Andromeda Black,” Kitamori laughs, high and humourless.  “They never mention Cecelia Crawford, though.  Because she didn’t have the same protection that Black did, didn’t have the same family name.  She killed herself when she was fifteen because--” Kitamori sobs, clutching at her stomach, “--because he got her pregnant.  Because she’d rather be dead then have his baby.”

The witch sits there, tears running down her face, and Mai just stands there dumbfounded.  How could anyone sanction this kind of torture, just to win a war?  How could anyone employ a rapist and a pedophile and give him access to children, just so that they could-- she doesn’t even want to think about it.

Kitamori turns her glance towards Mai, eyes piercing, deadly, “You asked why I’m here.”

“You told me that you wanted vengeance.  And justice.”

The witch nods, “Gara had a baby at the Labs.  And if I know about it, then Pegasus does.  I need to know where her child is, to get him away from all of this.  And then I’m going to finish what Gel, Gara, and I started all those years ago and tear the Department down, brick by brick.

“So tell me, Atem,” Kitamori looks back, body tense and ready to attack.  “Have I impressed you yet?”

Atem stares at her from across the table, her expression contemplative.  “Yes,” she finally says.  “Yes, I believe you have.”

“Good.  Then can you do me a favour and tell your friend to drop the invisibility spell?  Because it’s etting uncomfortable to pretend that they’re not there.”

Atem’s eyebrows shoot up into her skull.  Bakura phases back into existence beside her and Mai thanks God that he just seems impressed and not sheepish.

“What gave me away?” Bakura asks.

“Honestly, nothing,” Kitamori admits.  “But having someone in hiding, watching all of this… it would be what I would do.  So I guessed.”

Mai turns away then, walking into the empty kitchen and heading towards the walk in freezer.  When she opens the heavy door, she remembers seeing Tristan in there, wrapped up in the oversized, fluffy hoodie that they keep in the office, doing inventory.  She thinks of her daughter doing her homework in the front booth.  She thinks of Joey leaning over the front counter, a sly smirk splitting across his young face.

She places a large, defrosted red velvet cupcake on the table in front of Reiko Kitamori.  When the witch looks up at her, there’s a small spark of hope in her red-rimmed eyes.

“Guest right,” Mai says.  “You’re safe here until dawn.”

Kitamori looks down at the cupcake and up at her.  The thin line of her lips seems to tremble.

“Thank you,” the witch says truthfully and picks up the fork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all my American readers. You deserve so much better than this. You deserve a President and a leader, not a monster. But remember: you are strong, you are powerful. You will fight all the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic shit he throws at you. Because you deserve better. And you are better than he or his followers ever could be.
> 
> Be strong.
> 
> The world stands with you.


	3. The Fog of War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seto doesn’t like the plan. Atem is not surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of pedophila, past character death, and gore.

“No.”

Seto doesn’t like the plan.  Atem is not surprised.

She likes that about him.  She prefers having members of her council to not all have the same opinion as her.  Not only does that make the debates that they have infinitely less boring, but it also means that all options would be argued.  It’s probably the reason why the gods had chosen to split the power of the crown amongst three people from three very different backgrounds.  So Atem understands the reasoning behind all of this.

It’s just that right now, she doesn’t have time for this.  People are going to be showing up for this meeting in half an hour and the leadership of the San Francisco mage cause needs to be seen as a united front, not whatever it is now.

“It’s a good idea,” Atem says dryly, feeling like she’s repeated those exact words four times in the last forty five minutes - except, it’s not _just_ a feeling, she actually _has_.

“Splitting our forces is _not_ a good idea,” Seto stresses.  “We’re already stretched thin as it is.  If we’re really are going to attack this island stronghold, we need as many people at our backs as we can.  We can’t afford to have half of our people going off to England for a plan that might not work.”

“It’s not going to be half our force,” Bakura rolls his eyes, slumping back into the wingback chair he’s sitting on and kicking his feet up onto the table.  Atem resists the urge to swat at his legs.  “It’s going to be a small group, no more than six people.  Too large a group will attract attention.”

“All the more reason why Seto shouldn’t be the one in charge of that force, if we decide to do it.  We should, Bakura,” Joey leans forwards.  “Us thieves operate better in smaller units.  You guys are too used to commanding armies, not insurgent forces.

“ _~Thief, you have been warned, beware of finding more than treasure there~_ ” Bakura hums.  When Atem, Seto, and Joey look at him in question, he smirks, “It’s part of the rhyme engraved on the doors of every Gringotts Bank.  Even if we were to go, goblins don’t take too kindly to thieves.  We wouldn’t make as much of an impression as the great and powerful Pharaoh Seth.  Sending the Thief King would be an insult that we can’t afford right now.”

Atem nods along, “And even then, the whole point of the mission is insurance, just in case something does go wrong.  We can’t afford to show our full hand, not when we’re still recovering from this attack--”

“We just showed them that we could withstand whatever they could throw at us--” Seto starts, but Atem cuts him off.

“Seth, this wasn’t a full battle.  Anyone can see that,” she snaps.  “If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead.  The Department is one thing, but we don’t have the abilities to stand against the full force of the wizarding world and _you know that_.”  Seto scowls at her, but she continues on, “They came to take prisoners, for what reason?  They’re looking for something - information, maybe - because otherwise, they’d have focused more on killing us.”

_Killing is easy_ , Atem thinks.   _Subduing, now that’s a challenge._ She imagines trying to keep all those mages and non-magics in check, trying to keep Mokuba and Matthew from trying to cause all kinds of chaos, and it brings a small smile to her face.   _We’re coming for you.  I promise._

“I don’t trust the witch,” Joey says suddenly, cutting through their argument.  There’s a moment of silence before Bakura starts speaking.

“I don’t either.  I don’t think any of us really do.”

Atem watches as Seto raises an eyebrow.  Clearly, he’s surprised by that admission, though he’s not going to admit it.

“I trust her anger,” Atem says.  “But do I trust Reiko Kitamori?  No.  It’s hard to trust someone who’s clearly playing both sides.”

Bakura nods.  “And if this Helena Hendrix’s divine weapon is capable of reversing aging, then the fact that Kitamori doesn’t look all the one hundred and twenty--”

“One hundred and thirty five,” Atem interrupts.

“All the one hundred and thirty five years that she is,” Bakura concedes, “means that Kitamori still has powerful allies within the Department of Mysteries.  Hendrix knows that she’s here.  Hendrix knows that she’s going ‘off the books’,” Bakura uses actual finger quotes.  It’s kind of adorable.  “And she’s supporting it.  But then again, Mai didn’t catch Kitamori in a lie, so maybe Hendrix doesn’t know everything.”

And that’s the most important part: Mai Valentine didn’t detect a lie.  From what Atem remembers of her powers, Mai’s lie detection couldn’t be fooled, not even by mental shields or wards.  She compared the words a person spoke to the very timeline of the universe.  If Kitamori had felt the urge to hide anything, she would have had to couch it within complete truths.

“It’s still dangerous trusting her,” Seto says.  “Once she has Pegasus, there’s nothing stopping her from turning on us.”

“But if her end game really is to take down the Department, eventually she’ll have to drop even Helena Hendrix as an ally.  Unless she’s planning on flying completely solo, she’ll need someone on her side,” Joey muses.  When Seto gives him a pointed look, he shrugs, “What?  It’s a good point.  Even you have to admit that.”

“At the end of the day, she’s agreed to lead us to the island and help us to find our people in exchange for Maximillion Pegasus,” Bakura spits out the man’s name like a curse, and not for a second does Atem disagree.  “As much as the fucker disgusts me, if nothing else we can use him as leverage against Kitamori if she decides to betray us.  The ball is in our court here.”

“We still shouldn’t be splitting our forces,” Seto brings back the same point he’s been pushing all afternoon.  “Especially if we’re completely unsure of Kitamori’s intentions.”

“We _should_ split them, especially because we’re unsure,” Atem counters.  “ _We need insurance, Seto._  We need to still have something to use as a bargaining chip in case something goes terribly wrong.  You’re the best negotiator I’ve ever seen,” she tells him.  “If anyone can get them to listen to us, it’s you.”

“It’s not going to work--”

“Is this because you genuinely think my plan is stupid or because you aren’t going after Mokuba?” Atem finally snaps at him.  Seto goes silent, fingers drumming on the table.   _I’m right_.  “Well?”

“He’s my brother, Atem.  He’s _our_ brother.  And you just came back.  I should be the one going--”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” She tries to get through to him, “Do you think that this doesn’t kill me inside, sending you to the other side of the world?  Because it does, but we have to prioritize--”

“You think _I_ don’t know that?” He shouts back at her, “Damn it, Atem, I’ve already lost my brother to these monsters and-- and you just want to go after them with less than a full force--”

“I am full capable of--”

“I can’t lose you again!” Seto stands up suddenly.  The bottom of Atem’s stomach drops.  “I can’t.  You just came back and it’s been so long, I just can’t--”  Seto covers his hand with his mouth, unable to continue.

Atem’s brain actually struggles to process this.  Logically, she knows that Seth had had to live on after she died, but it isn’t until this moment that she understands that _he’d had to live on while being unable to publicly mourn her passing_.  That she’d done the same thing to him than Bakura blamed her father for doing to her.

“Seth...” she says softly, reaching out ever so slowly, like he was a scared animal.

“You were dead, Atem.  Everyone was dead, everyone we grew up with, all but Mana.  And we had to put everything back together because you were _gone_ and--” Seto takes a shuddering breath, “--and I can’t lose you again, not to these people.  Don’t… don’t ask me to be on the other side of the fucking world while you go off to fight again.”

Seto looks so tired when he slumps back in his chair, face hiding in his hands.  Atem pinches her lips together as she struggles with her emotions, not sure whether to control the urge to hold him or not.  Her mother always taught her to guard her feelings, to maintain a solid wall between herself and even those she loves.  Atem has always been more of her mother’s heir than her father’s, she likes to think.  But then Bakura nudges her ever so slightly and gives her this _look_ and Atem knows that right now, Seto needs his sister and not his Pharaoh.

“Brother,” she whispers, moving from her chair to kneel before him on the floor.  When she covers his large hand with her smaller one, Seto looks at her in shock.  “Seth, listen to me.  I’ll be alright.  I promise you.  I swear it, by all the gods, old and new.”

“Atem, what…?” He’s shaking so badly, staring at her like she’s gone mad.   _Has he forgotten that I loved him?  Has he forgotten that, if I could die, I would die for him in a heartbeat?_

“And if I’m not,” she continues, “I know that you’ll pull Mokuba and I out of it, no matter what.”

Seto’s jaw clenches so tight that Atem can hear his teeth grinding against one another.  When he finally speaks, he says, “You shouldn’t kneel before me, sister.”

She frowns, thinking that he’s missed her point, “I’m not your King, not now.”

“I know.  I’m not yours, either,” Seto shrugs, trying to look indifferent.   _We’re equals.  That’s what he’s trying to say._

“You royals, making things so complicated,” Bakura huffs, rolling his eyes and breaking the tension in the room.  “Can’t even make up after a fight without making a production out of it."

“Yes, I suppose we should just take a page out of your book, Bakura, and sulk for days on end and refuse to talk to anyone,” Atem throws back at him, a small smirk on her face.

“...I don’t sulk for _days_ ,” he pouts.

“No, no, you really do,” Joey grins.  “‘Jono, they don’t like me anymore.’  ‘Jono, I don’t want to talk about it.’  ‘Jono, I love them so much, I wanna have their _babies_ \--”

“I don’t sound like that,” Bakura whines.

“You totally do,” Joey practically cackles.

“This sounds like a bit more than hypothetical.  When did he say that?” Atem asks Joey carefully, feeling her face heat up.  When she glances at Bakura out of the corner of her eye, she can see that he’s blushing too.

“Oh, around that time where you guys figured who you were.  We didn’t know it at the time, though.  It just seemed like you three all had a fight,” Joey laughs.  “But this guy--”

“Wait, was that around the time where you started snapping at people?” Seto frowns, turning to look down at Atem.  Her grin slips from her face.   _Oh no_.  “Around the autumn equinox?”

“No,” Atem lies, vehemently.  She gets to her feet and sits down as gracefully as she can back in her seat.

“Yeah, it was,” Joey cackles.  “Oh my god, you were are _pouting_!”

“Nearly tore my head off for bumping into you in the hallway,” Seto chimes in, a small smile working its way onto his face for the first time that afternoon.

“That’s adorable,” Joey says.

“It.  Didn’t.  Happen,” she implores.  She looks over at Bakura again, only to find him staring back, this soft little look in his eyes.

“Really?” He asks quietly.

“I didn’t pout,” she says stubbornly, but then taps her heel to his ankle.  “Just like you didn’t sulk.”

Bakura has a lot of smiles, mostly crooked smirks and cocky grins, making him look like all kinds of trouble when combined with the dashing scar and nose that’s clearly been broken twice.  But occasionally, his mouth curves into this small, shy smile, and it’s like someone unleashed a flock of butterflies inside her chest.

He does this now, fingers twisting in his shirt.  He lets out a tiny little laugh and he’s so utterly beautiful that Atem almost kisses him.

But the moment doesn’t last.  It’s back to business as soon as Seto opens his mouth.

“If I’m going to England, I need _something_ to convince the goblins to listen to us,” Seto says, sounding resigned.

“How’s your Gobbledegook?” Bakura asks, naming the goblin’s mother tongue.

“I haven’t been fluent for several cycles,” he admits.  Atem wonders if languages can carry over from previous lives.  She’s going to guess that they don’t, considering that both Seto and Amanda had look confused when she spoke to them in their old language.  She thought in an old mixture of Ancient Egyptian and English herself, even though she could speak nearly a dozen languages fluently.  “The last time I learned Gobbledegook, it was in the early 1600s.”

“What were you doing?” Bakura asks.

“Trying to assassinate a witch named Isidore Greengrass.  She was leading this group called the Coalition of Sacred Brothers, who were the Department of their day.  We were trying to strike back,” Seto shook his head.  “We allied ourselves with the goblins, because they were angry about how the King Ragnuk’s sword hadn’t been returned again--”

“Ragnuk’s sword?” Atem asks.

“Also known as the Sword of Gryffindor,” Seto explains.  “It’s goblin made, but Gryffindor’s descendants didn’t return it after his death.”

Atem frowns.  It was part of the contract when someone commissioned a goblin made artifact, they would respect goblin tradition and have the artifact returned to the craftsman upon their death.  If this sword was commissioned by a King, then there was probably some powerful spells interwoven into the metal.  She almost wants to get her hands on it, to feel the powerful magic coursing through it, to watch the ancient ruins pulsing just below the surface.

“Anyways, the goblins took over an inn that Greengrass was staying in and we sent in a Polish mage named Tomisław Brzozowski.  They ended up sinking the inn with Greengrass inside.  Brzozowski escaped, but he was hunted down within the week.  Soon after that, wizards went into hiding and the goblins went with them,” Seto sighs.  “I think they’ve switched sides.”

“So we need something big to offer them, something to convince them to uphold our ancient alliance,” Atem says.

“Blood,” Bakura says suddenly.  “The alliance was signed in blood, so let’s give them blood.”

“Bakura, we’re not going to fight anyone for them, not when we’re trying to win our own battles,” she reminds him.

“No.  We give them actual _blood_ ,” he says.  Her eyes widen, _Oh.  They know._

“Gold blood is this mythic thing amongst wizards, so it’s probably the same amongst goblins.  I read about it at Hogwarts,” he explains.  “Not only would it prove that we’re actually here, but according to legend, it has incredible magical properties.  Even if that’s just a legend, it would be one hell of a gift.”

Atem barely hears Bakura’s explanation, though.  All she can think about is the fact that Bakura is talking about the fact that they have gold blood to people that aren’t her or the King Commander.  They’d promised each other all those years ago that they’d never tell anyone until it became obvious that they weren’t aging anymore.  Atem knows that it had been a selfish decision, but one that she can’t find in herself to regret.  Had they declared their immortality early in their rule, their eventual deaths would have crushed their country’s moral.  Even then, if they had lived… she doesn’t want to think of how her friend’s and family’s faces would have withered and aged while she stayed young, how she would have watched them die.

Instead, they watched her die.  There’s a certain amount of irony in that.

“Promise them us, remind them of the alliance we made all those years ago.  Promise them--” Bakura starts, but then Joey says.

“Tell them about the Archives.”

Seto jerks his head towards Joey.

“Seriously, you should have seen the stuff down there.  If I were a gambling man, I’d bet all $39.05 of my life savings that there’s some goblin made stuff down there that they’d like back,” Joey nods.

“We’d need more than just the suggestion,” Seto says, pausing for a moment before continuing.  “...If I took a long a few thieves, a few that wouldn’t be recognized, we could make a pit stop in Philadelphia first.”

“They’ll be ready for us this time.  Let’s face it, the only reason that raid went as well as it did was because nobody was expecting it,” Bakura points out.

“I know that,” Seto scoffs, a hint of their earlier dislike of each other making itself known.  “But you’re not the only one capable of plans.”

“And you’ve got one?”

“Give me a layout of the interior and Vivian Wong and, yes, I’ll have one.”

The two of them stare at each other for a moment, daring the other to say something.  Atem watches as a white aura rolls off of Bakura, curling in the air like smoke and mist, reaching out with thin tendrils towards her brother, unconsciously issuing a challenge of strength.  Seto responds with his own silver magic, streaked with azure, flowing like liquid metal.  No one in the room can see this hidden battle except her, but she suspects that Joey can feel it.

And then, unexpectedly, Bakura backs off.  Atem raises an eyebrow.   _This is new_.

There’s something different between the two of them, something that she suspects traces back to the secret that Bakura had revealed to her in the burnt out remains of the Turtle Game Shop.   _Seth and Bakura killed Aknadin.  He may not have held the knife, but Seth helped murder his own father._  The two most unlikely people had put aside their dislike for one another and worked together to take down the man that had taken so much from so many, becoming Aknadin’s judge, jury, and executioner.  

Atem wonders if she’d been angry when she’d found out all those years ago.  She wonders if she’d been relieved.

“Fine.  But be careful,” Bakura stresses.

“ _Careful_?  Bakura, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that you cared,” Joey teases.

Bakura snorts, but offers nothing else and that’s practically an admission, in an of itself.  A small smile works its way onto her lips.   _It would figure that it would take a few millennia for those two to start liking each other._

“Vivian Wong, then.  Who else do you want for your team, Seto?” Atem asks.

He ponders it over for a minute before answering, “I’ll wait until we see who the Jackals are sending us to give you a final answer, but put Mai on my list.  Rafael, too.  I’m going to need some muscle.  Your sister,” he turns to Joey, who gives a tense nod.

“Mai’s going to kill you for leaving her without a babysitter,” Bakura comments.

“Maya has a child in this cycle?” Atem asks, feeling slightly lost.  She glances at Bakura again, catches him staring at her.  She doesn’t know why, not really, but she doubts it has anything to do with--

_“We can’t,” Atem whispers late one night, fingers turning the cow’s head charm in her hand, the moonlight glancing off the features of Hathor. She’s not going to cry,  “We’d outlive them.”_

_“I know,” he says, his voice thick with emotion.  “I know, love.  It’s alright.”_

_“I can’t--”_

The memory cuts out just before she says the King Commander’s name.  She forces herself to hold Bakura’s gaze as he answers her question.

“A daughter.  Haley,” he says.  “She’s sweet.  You’d like her.”

_Does he remember?_ She wants to ask him about the night they’d agreed not to have any children, about how they’d agreed never to tell anyone why she’d never fallen pregnant during the years they’d been together.  Atem remembers visiting Hathor’s temple, praying for the goddess to not make her a mother the one time her monthly blood had not come on time, and how the Mistress of the West had sent it to her the very next day.

Bakura nods slightly, softly, and a little bit sadly, and she knows that he does.

“Alister will take care of her,” Joey says.  “He and Raf are Haley’s godparents.  And if anything goes wrong…”  He doesn’t dare continue, but the rest of the sentence hangs over them like a blade.

“Joey, you… you go with Atem and Bakura,” Seto says, his voice tight.  He glances over at his friend, “You’ll do more good with them.”

“I know, man.  I know.  It’s alright.” There’s this charged look between the two of them and for a moment she thinks that-- no, _Bes and Qetesh and Osiris_ , she knows that there’s something more that these two have not worked out for themselves.  Atem realizes in that moment just how much she’s missed out on.

“We’ve got company coming down the halls,” Bakura says suddenly, his hand touching his stomach.  Atem can’t see the magic of the Millennium Ring working - and that is something that she will never get used to - but she follows suit and touches the Puzzle, hidden in Amanda’s cloaking spell around her neck.

The world inverts for a second as the divine weapon’s powers seep into her body, amplifying her ability to sense and control energy to the point where she can see through the walls and beneath the floors.  Atem spots the flaring lights of four nervous systems walking towards Seto’s front door, watches as their phones send off signals towards the satellites roughly twelve thousand five hundred and five two miles above her head.  There’s six more squashed together in the elevator; fifteen have chosen to brave the condo’s staircase.

There’s a knock at the door.

“It’s time to be Kings,” Bakura says gravely as Seto stands up to let their guests in.

Atem runs her hands through her thick red hair, wondering if the hairdresser that Atem went to is still alive.

“Yes,” she agrees.  “Yes.  It’s time.”

* * *

Pete helps Solomon Mutuo back to his cell after Pegasus finishes with him and thinks that he’s never seen a man look more broken before in his life.  And it’s the worst feeling in the world, because Mutuo looks like every bit the grandfather that he is and Pete can’t help but see the same misery in him as that kid in the kitchen, hunched over his mother and desperately trying to bring her back to life.  They need to move faster, though, because the last place Pete wants to be right now is anywhere within Pegasus’s sight 

The old man is barely coherent, blood dripping from his nose, when Pete unlocks the door.  Mokuba Kaiba is immediately on his feet, teeth bared.

“What did you do to him?!”

“Just… Just fucking _help_ me with him, okay?” Pete gasps.  He’d hauled Mutuo over his shoulders as soon as he could and booked it down the hallway and now he’s panting.  “Get his other side.”

“M-Moku… Mon-Monthu…” Mutuo stammers, eyes darting back and forth in their sockets.  Pete is a little bit concerned because Kaiba just _jumps_ when calls him something that isn’t his name and actually does what Pete asks of him.  Together, they set Mutuo down on the moldy old cot in the corner of the room.

“What did you do to him?” Kaiba asks again, voice tense with anger.

“I didn’t-- I--” Pete can’t even comprehend what’s happening.  Between Reiko’s betrayal and whatever the hell Pegasus has done to his face, he’s shaking and three seconds away from throwing up.

“The Eye…” Mutuo wheezes.  “Monthu… H-h-he… The _Eye_.”

Kaiba is not saying anything.  He’s just staring at Mutuo with such a look of horror that Pete knows, somewhere in the back of his mind where he’s not in a complete and utter panic, that the mages know something about what’s going on.

“Pegasus, the guy in charge--” Pete is talking before he can shut himself up.  “He’s lost it-- He cut out his eyeball and--”

“ _No_ ,” Kaiba gasps.  “Holy fuck, shit, you have the Millennium Eye?”

Pete thinks that that’s probably what the golden thing in Pegasus’s eye socket is called because it looks like he’s stuck a bloody golden orb in his head and then used it to pull someone’s brain apart, “You know what it is?”

“You’re an Unspeakable and you _don’t_?"

Pete thinks that it’s a little unreasonable that nobody seems to grasp the concept that he works for the Department of _Mysteries_.  Secrets are part of the job.

“What does it do?”

“I’m not fucking telling you!”

“Fuck kid, it nearly killed you friend!  It could kill you, too!”

“I would rather die than give you anything!”

“Monthu…” Mutuo rasps again and Pete loses Kaiba’s attention again.  “Monthu… He-- he--”

“Grandpa, don’t… just rest.  Come on, old man, it’s okay--”

“He _knows_ about Atem.”

Mokuba Kaiba goes completely white.  His jaw flaps open once, twice, and then brings a shaking hand to cover his mouth.

“ _Atem…”_ Kaiba says this person’s name with such a level of reverence, such a level of horror, that Pete wonders just who this guy is.

Kaiba is swearing under his breath, grasping desperately for Mutuo’s hand.

“He knows everything, doesn’t he?” Kaiba whispers, “He knows about Bakura, too.”  Mutuo shakes with something that might be a nod, might be a shuddering gasp.  Kaiba asks, “Does he know about cycling?”

“Y… y…”  Mutuo can barely speak.  Kaiba sits down on the floor, head in his hands, a picture of defeat.

“What _is_ the Millennium Eye?” Pete asks again.  Kaiba peaks out from between his fingers and the narrowing of his eyes is the only warning Pete gets.

Kaiba launches himself at Pete, fingers wrapping around his neck and pushing him to the ground.  He struggles for breath, wand slipping from his hand as he claws at Kaiba’s grip.  Darkness invades the sides of his vision, the kid’s face all that he can see, eyes full of rage and fear and--

Pete gets his leg up in between their bodies and violently kicks at Kaiba’s stomach until the guy lets go, coughing blood.  They both roll onto their side, trying to force air into their lungs.  A wave of hysteria hits Pete just then and he laughs his throat absolutely raw.

_What the fuck is going on?_ He wonders, _Reiko, what were you thinking?  What did you do to me?  What am I going to do now?_

Keith is falling apart by the seams, having downed a bottle of firewhiskey hidden in his office as soon as Latner disappeared.  Tilla has been obsessively trying to find out everything she can on Kiyoshi.  Lew is dead and Reiko is just _gone_ , disappearing behind enemy lines and, fuck, Merlin, _god--_

He hasn’t told anyone why he went to Keith with those scrolls that day, but something tells him that if he looks Pegasus in the eye, that’s not going to matter.  It had been in the days after Ryou Andrews’ explosive death.  He and Reiko had become friends after she’d helped heal him after Andrews’ stabbed him with a wand.  They’d been talking to each other on one of the balconies, leaning over the railing and Pete’s heart had been thumping in his chest because the sun had hit Reiko’s face just right and she was laughing and he’d felt like he’d known her his entire life.

Pete had brought up the rumour that some of the higher up were talking about taking back the mage stronghold of San Francisco, that he’d _lived_ in San Francisco when he was younger, but then Reiko suddenly had this look on her face, like she’d lost something irreplaceable.  She’d tried to cover it up and it’s only now that he realizes that this had either been a slip in her cover or something she’d faked in order to gain sympathy, but in the moment it had worked and Pete was stumbling over words to get Reiko to smile again.

Reiko, though… She’d refused to tell him _why_ she’d been so sad, instead insisting that Pete should find out who was in charge of that mission and tell them that he could help.  She’d said nothing about recommending her to the team, so there wasn’t any reason for him telling Keith about her after their meeting other than that he wanted to work with her.  But Latner had said that she’d implanted the idea in him somehow and Pete doesn’t know what to do.

So he laughs, cackling there on the cold floor of a cell with two muggles after one of them tried to murder him.  Pete Coppermine laughs until he throws up, laughs until Mokuba Kaiba tries to go for his neck again, laughs while he grabs his wand and knocks the kid out cold.  Laughs until he passes out himself.

He’s done.  He’s so fucking done with all of this.  Pete is angry and terrified and just wants this all to be over.

_What am I going to do?_ He thinks.   _What am I going to do?_


	4. Unveil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shrugs again, “He brought me a McMuffin.” Keith chuckles, “It had eggs, but it wasn’t about the eggs.”
> 
> “The unknown mage from the break in bought you McDonalds?!”
> 
> He doesn’t understand why this is so hard for her to grasp, “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The McDonalds Corportation is founded by Richard McDonald, Maurice McDonald, and Ray Kroc. The Toyota Prius is manufactured by the Toyota Motor Corporation.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of child abuse, mental and physical torture, gore, minor character death, imprisonment, pedophilia, alcohol abuse, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.

They got one of the kids.  The blond brat with the glasses and the bowl cut sits in a cell, looking at his hands, at the chains wrapped around his wrists.  Keith is so drunk right now that he can barely stand.

“You’re not standing,” says the voice beside him.  Keith blearily blinks up at Mook from his seat on the floor.  Her face is blurry.

“I knew that,” he says stubbornly, bringing the bottle of firewhiskey in his hand to his lips and taking a long swig.  He tilts his head to look at her again and nearly falls over.

“Damn it, Bandit.  You can’t be…” Mook groans and snatches the bottle from him.  Keith reaches to take it back and actually does fall over this time.

“That’s mine,” he slurs.

“You can have it back once you get yourself together.”

“My shit _is_ together...”

“You’re _drunk_ , Keith,” she shouts.  “You’re drunk and we’re in _so much shit_ and-- fuck, Coppermine just had a break down and Kitamori is in the wind and--” Mook cuts herself off, bites her lip, and then slides to the floor beside him.  She lets out this humourless chuckle and takes a swig of the firewhiskey.  Keith doesn’t get how it’s fair that she can drink and he’s not allowed.

“Pegasus lost it, just like Latner said he would,” Mook sighs.  “He’s using the Millennium Eye.”

Keith pushes himself up and knocks his head slightly against the wall.  He motions for Mook to share the bottle and, after giving him a disapproving look, she hands it back to him.

“Using it, like,” he mimes holding the Eye in his hand and waving it in front of him, “or, _using_ it, like,” Keith pretends to carve out his eyeball with an imaginary spoon.

“The second one.”  Mook’s response means that the only sensible thing for Keith to do is pass the firewhiskey back to her.

“Shiiiiitty,” he laughs.

“Yes, Keith.  It’s very shitty,” she says flatly.

He laughs again, but it dies out quickly, “It’s all my fault…”

“You couldn’t have stopped him,” Mook just doesn’t get it.

“No talking about that,” he takes the bottle from her and takes another drink.  “It’s all my fault.  This."

He points towards the cage were Weevil Underwood is being held.  The kid hasn’t moved at all.  Keith wants to throw up.

“What are you talking about?” Mook frowns, gently removing the bottle from his grip and setting it aside where he can’t reach it.

Keith laughs again, “Called Bakura.  Gave him a warning.  Told him we were looking for them.  Those kids that escaped.”

Mook takes a moment to process what he’s just admitted, “Keith?  Who’s Bakura?”

“A mage,” he shrugs.

“Bakura is a _mage_?”

“You know… The black one with,” he points at his hair, “the white… you know?  And the scar.”  He draws a line on his left cheek.  “Except it’s on the other side.”

“You know who the unknown mage from the break in is?” Mook’s voice goes up nearly an octave when she whisper-shouts, Keith notices.

He shrugs again, “He brought me a McMuffin.”  Keith chuckles, “It had eggs, but it wasn’t about the eggs.”

“ _The unknown mage from the break in bought you McDonalds?!_ ”

He doesn’t understand why this is so hard for her to grasp, “Yes.”

“And… Merlin’s _tits_ , Keith.  How long have you been spying for them?!”

“Not a spy,” he tries to reach across Mook and grab the bottle, but she grabs him and hauls him upright.  “Just… Just warned him, is all."

“Why?  Damn it, Keith.  How could you be so stupid?”

“‘Cause he puts, like, so much sugar in his coffee,” Keith admits, leaning his weight against Mook’s shoulder.  She smells like battle, like soot and smoke and blood and death.  “Just like Ryou.”

_They were just children, Keith.  I had to._

Mook doesn’t say anything for a very long time.  Then she whispers, “Ryou… Ryou _Andrews_?  Your convert?”

Keith nods slowly.  Mook scoffs, “But… he was just a mage.”

“Don’t!” Keith shouts, “Don’t you fucking say that again!  He’s not just a mage,” he’s slurring his words now, barely comprehensible even to himself.  “He’s so… so much more… You don’t--” he hiccups, “You don’t understand…”

Mook snorts and picks up the bottle, taking another gulp, “Merlin help me, I think I might.  And that’s the worst thing.”

He looks at her then, squinting through eyes that just won’t seem to focus, “Who’re you talking about?”

She looks at the bottle in her hand, turning it slightly, pretending to read the label.  Finally she answers, “Depre Scott.  He’s… I was his Handler when we worked in the Gardens.  He abandoned a mission to save me once.”

“Sounds like he in love with you, or something,” Keith mumbles.  Mook offers him a broken chuckle and nothing else.  “Knew it, though.  Kid’s totally a Plant.”

“Well, he’s not exactly _trying_ to fit in,” Mook tells him.

“Bet he couldn’t even _if_ he was trying.”

“He could.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Could.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Shut up!” Mook knocks him with her shoulder and it’s what makes him realize that she’s probably a little tipsy herself.  Then she switches the conversation back, “Underwood’s one of the mages Andrews’ saved, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Keith admits and feels really crafty when he steals the bottle from Mook.  “Said that he had to.”

“What was he like?” She asks.

“Ryou?  He was…” Keith looks down at the bottle.  He’s just holding it, not drinking or anything, which is kind of a waste, but his hands are shaking and he thinks that if he brings the bottle up to his face, he might hit himself in the eye.  “He had this, um, treasure trove behind the wall of his bed, because he could move through walls and shit.  And there were all these books and forks and jewelry that he’d hide behind there.  He liked candy - anything sweet, really.  And…” Keith pauses for a second, “he had a girlfriend, but I think he might have been gay.

“He was just this _kid_ and I killed him, Tilla.  I killed him,” he says.  “But he tried to save _them_ ,” he points at Underwood, “and I asked Bakura to save them for Ryou, but he _didn’t_ and I can’t--”

“Blaine Gerrish talked about the mage they killed outside Matthew Jacques’ apartment.  He didn’t sound like the white haired mage.  This Bakura… he wasn’t there.”

“Then he’s dead, too.  On some street in the middle of nowhere.   _Fuck_ ,” Keith swears.

“I’m sorry,” Mook says.

“Yeah.  Yeah, me too.”

They sit there for a little while longer, passing the bottle between the two of them until they finish it.  Keith turns to Mook, “It should have been you.”

“Hmm?”

“Pegasus.  The actually _fuck_ was he thinking putting me in charge?”

“You’re a man.  You’ve seen how he reacts to Latner.  You think someone like him wants to see women in charge?” Mook says flatly.

“You make an--” Keith hiccups again, “--an excellent point.”  He laughs and then shouts at the top of his lungs, “PEGASUS GAVE ME A JOB BECAUSE HE LIKES MY DICK!”

“Oh _Merlin_ , shut up!  Please just shut up!” Mook actually laughs and he sees a bit of the old partner that he used to have.  They may never have gotten a long back then, but they’d still had each other’s backs through thick and thin.  “Seriously, the guys just carved out his eye and stuck in a mage weapon--”

“HE LIKES MY DICK, TILLA!”

“ _Oh my god!_ ”

And it’s absolutely stupid, but there they are, two old partners shooting shit on the floor in a prison hallway.  Keith dimly wonders if Ryou walked down this hall, if this was where he attacked Coppermine and-- _fuck_ , Kitamori.  Suddenly, the penny drops and the empty bottle in Keith’s hands thunks to the floor.

 _Reiko Kitamori_ .  He doesn’t even know what to think about her.   _How much had been a lie?  How much had just been part of her cover?_  There’s a pit of dread in his stomach when he thinks about all that they had discussed behind closed doors, of all the times when he was asleep and she could have gone through his belongings.  If Kitamori had truly been as powerful as Latner had suggested, what would have stopped her from unravelling his Occlumency shields and riffling through his memories?

“Kitamori,” he says when Mook asks why he’s gone all quiet.  She swears again and Keith looks at her strangely.  It would figure that all his good ideas come to him when he’s piss drunk.

“What would you do?” He asks her.  When Mook raises an eyebrow at him, he continues, “Should have been you as leader.  So, y’know?  Lead?  Maybe?”

Mook looks up at the ceiling for a moment, thunking her head on the brick wall behind her, “We can’t afford traitors.”

“I know.”

“We’ll have to kill her.”

“I… I know.”

“ _You_ might have to kill her.”

Keith thinks back to the first night that he and Kitamori slept together, how he’d wondered if one day he’d be holding her dead body on some street in the middle of nowhere, how she might one day be holding his.  He’d never imagined that one of them might be the one to kill the other.

“I know,” he says finally.  “I know.  Do you think… that you could kill her?”

Mook signs, “Do I have the will power?  Yeah.  I do.  But... “ Her head lulls to the side, “Am I _good_ enough to?”

“Yeah.  Same.”

Keith is slurring so badly now that the two words come out as this singular, unintelligible sound of agreement, but at least Mook gets the meaning.  He says something else, something that he can’t even remember, before passing out cold on her shoulder.

* * *

 

The Millennium Eye burns in the socket of his right eye, slick with his own blood.  Max should heal himself, but there’s so much churning through his mind that he can’t bring himself to even bother.

 _The King of Thieves has returned.  Yuugi Mutuo will become the Lady Pharaoh_ .  He must act.  He must ensure the survival of the superior wizarding race.  It’s why he was chosen all those years ago, why _he_ had been one of the final ones to willingly take the pledge to abandon all that he had, and to serve.

_I will serve.  I was born for this.  I’m special.  I can handle this--_

Max’s knees give out on him and he falls to the ground.  He catches himself with his hands, his single working eye watching as the floor became stained with red.  He brings his fingers to his nose and wipes away the blood there.  His hair has fallen from it’s tie at the base of his neck.  He needs to fix that.

_I will not be humiliated!  I am in control here!_

This was all Trista Latner’s fault, her’s and the damned bitch, Reiko Kitamori.  If Latner had just stayed out of this, if she’d just let him run his plan like he’d wanted to, the mage stronghold of San Francisco would have been dust beneath their feet.  But, no.  She’d had to stick her nose where it didn’t belong.

Max pushes himself to his feet, sneering and hissing and spitting.  He leaves his office and marches down the hallway.  He passes a Seedling on the way.  The boy gives an indignified squawk and flattens himself against the wall, as if that could save him--

Memories and thoughts and emotions all flood into Max’s head at once and it nearly knocks him clean off his feet.  He sees this stupid Seedling going through his training, feels his reaction to his friends dying.  Max almost screams himself when he watches the boy’s arm getting cut off and grown back over and over again until he was numb with it, barely even reacting to the boning saw.

_Control.  Control.  I can--_

_“Please!  Please!  I’ll do anything!  Not again, just-- not again, PLEASE!”_

“Shut up!” Max lashes out, cutting down the cowering Seedling in a flash of green.  The boy jerks, tensing up in his final seconds, and collapses on the ground.   _Replaceable.  They’re all replaceable._  There was always a new war coming and soon the Seedling program would have fresh recruits.  This one meant nothing.

Just like Reiko Kitamori-- no, he corrects himself.  Plant #1,014.  Giving the bitch a name meant that she was a person, not something that could be locked and loaded and fired at will.  She’d betrayed him, after all that he’d given her.   _I made her, she should have been mine._  Max had given her everything.  All of her supposed strength, all of her skill - he’d gifted it to her.   _How dare she?_

And… she’d wanted him, giving him promising looks out of the corner of her eyes.  She’d been flirting with him ever since he’d first seen her, so soft and pliant and willing.  How could any man deny himself that?  So Max had taken her into his bed, promising to keep her forever, to make her eternally young.  She’d cried so prettily when he told her that.  He thinks that he’d loved her back then, but Plant #1,014 had taken that love and betrayed him.

 _I’ll kill her myself.  I’ll destroy her like she tried to destroy me_ , Max promises, touching the blood-slick skin beneath his new golden eye.   _Nothing can stand in the way of a divine weapon.  I’m invincible.  I was chosen for this._

He needs to find Keith.  Max continues to stumble down the hallway towards where he hopes the boy is.  He focuses the power of the Eye and the world inverts for a moment.  He’s blasted by all the thoughts of those on the island.  But he is strong, stronger now that he wields this great weapon, so he sorts through them until he finds Keith’s thoughts and memories.

Max pushes aside the worst of them, focusing instead on Keith’s victories and the feelings of pride that came with them.  He concentrates specifically on the memory of the boy’s hunt of Lindsay Devlin, a mage from Oklahoma with the power to control plant life.  Max sees the girl in his mind, Chinese and pretty with slim hips and arms barely covered by the whorish muggle rags she wore.  He watches as Keith brings the girl in for execution, watches the mage die as the Ring is dropped around her neck.  He takes a bit of sick pleasure experiencing the orgasm Keith has with the prostitute he hires behind a bar afterwards - she’s not his type, she’s too old, but Keith likes her in the memory so Max does a well.

 _Mine_ , he thinks.   _He’s mine.  His memories, his successes, his life are mine to claim.  Latner thinks she knows everything, but no, she’s so stupid.  She has no idea what I’ve created._

He finds Keith leaning on Tilla Mook’s shoulder outside the cell of a teenaged mage.  Mook is drunk.  Keith is beyond that, not even conscious, drool darkening the fabric of the witch’s clothing.  Max is pulled into Mook’s memories the moment they make eye contact.  He watches that failed mission in Belfast, sees the look of rage on Plant #85,470M’s face as he bursts onto the scene and slays the men that had surrounded her.  He watches as the Plant kneels before her, emotion breaking through decades of conditioning, and cradles Mook’s face in his hands, like the witch is something utterly precious.

_“Depre, De-- what are you doing?!  The mission!  You’re target!”_

_“You’re alive.  You’re alive.”_

The Plant rests his forehead against her’s, fingers shaking with terror and exhaustion, and Max suddenly has the most powerful piece of blackmail against Mook that he could ever need.

“Stand,” he commands.  Mook attempts to lurch to her feet, but she stumbles and falls the first time.  Keith remains unresponsive against the wall as the witch finally stands.  “Wake him.”

Mook actually kicks the boy in the shin.  A fit of rage pulses through Max and then Mook is on the ground, shrieking at the top of her lungs and clawing at her scalp.  Keith jerks awake and slurs something, ignoring Max and reaching towards the witch.  Max pulls Mook out of her memories of going through the Seedling program and orders her to stand again.

“You have new orders,” Max says.  “I want to know everything the hostages know about the Three Kings.  Use whatever force necessary.  I don’t care how many survive.”

He’d do it himself, but he needs to rest the Eye.  It takes so much out of him to wield it at full capacity that his control over its powers are slipping.   _I will be stronger by the time I am needed again_ , he tells himself.

“The… the what?” Keith asks.  Max signs and steps forwards, trying to hide the shaking in his hands.  He ignores how Keith flinches back when he gets close enough and draws his wand.

“The Three Kings, my boy,” he says, casting a spell over Keith to sober him up.   _I must protect him, even from himself.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing.  He’s too young._  “You remember the stories, right?  Your mother must have read them to you as a child.”

“She did, yes sir,” Keith nods, his eyes flickering between the left and right sides of Max’s face, as if unsure of what to look at, how not to stare.  He wants to laugh.

“It turns out that we were wrong about the Ring’s untimely demise,” Max explains.  “The Thief King managed to survive Ryou Andrews’ execution and is currently alive and well inside of San Francisco.  If we don’t act soon, the Pharaoh will join him.  We need to know what they know.”

“Sir?  The… You can’t be serious.  He--”

Max is drawn into several of Keith’s memories all at once.  He sees the boy sitting on a bench, pleading for the Spirit of the Millennium Ring to save his mage convert.  He gets flashes of Ryou Andrews playing chess against himself in the middle of the night, Keith trying to kidnap the mage and take him far away from the reaches of the Department, of how Andrews’ final moments have been haunting Keith for weeks now.

Then--

“Bakura...” Max whispers, taken aback by the memory that Keith is frantically trying to hide.  “You warned him that we were coming.”

“No!” Keith shouts.  “No, I swear, I swear to Merlin, sir, I didn’t!”

“He came into your home and you spoke with him and _you let him go_ without firing a single spell!”  How dare he?  After all that Max has done for him, how dare Keith Howard repay him like this?  “All for some dead mage brat!”

Max sees the thoughts erupting in Keith’s head before the boy lashes out at him.  Max blocks his clumsy attempt at an attack and pushes back with just a fraction of the power of the Eye.  Keith falls to the ground like Mook did, screaming and crying and coughing blood.

“You’ve got traitor’s blood, just like that bitch Kitamori,” he hisses.  “I should have let you both _die_!”

“Please!  Please!  Make it stop!  I’ll do anything--”

“Do you know what’s so funny about all of this,” Max laughs hysterically.  “You begged the Spirit to save your pathetic convert, so he leached away the brat’s life energy and used it to come back into this world.  If you’d never told him about Ryou Andrews, Thief King Bakura would still be dead.   _This is all your fault,_ you stupid boy!”

He releases Keith from the Eye’s power and nearly collapses from the strain.   _I’ve used too much,_ Max thinks.   _I need to rest_.

“B-Bakura?” Keith stammers, “Bakura is…?”

He doesn’t say anything else.  Mook takes him protectively into her arms, whispering something that Max assumes is comfort.   _First Kitamori and now Keith.  Traitors.  I should have known better than to trust them._

“The mage from the break in?” Mook asks, eyes hard.  There are lines on her face from years of frowning.  Any attractiveness that she may have possessed during her days in the Seedling program is long done.  Only a Plant could ever delude itself into seeing something there anymore.

“The great King of Thieves, yes,” Max spits.  “The master of souls.  The bloodborn.  The child of the moon and the night and the air-- yes, _him_.  He walks amongst us again because of--”

Max sways on the spot, the world spinning around him.  His nose is bleeding again.   _Control it.  Control the Eye.  I was chosen.  I was chosen._

“Take him away,” he shouts at Mook, looking at Keith in disgust.  “If he loves mages so much, he can die with them.”

Mook, pale are curdled milk, takes Keith by the arm and pulls him to his feet, leading him away by the arm and shaking the whole time.  Max spits on the floor where they were sitting together and stumbles back towards the exit, only to be stopped by his house elf, Croquet.

“Master,” the elf croaks, “There’s been a problem with one of the prisoners.”

“What now?” He snaps.   _I need to rest.  I don’t have time for this._

“It’s Solomon Mutuo, sir.  It seems he’s escaped from his cell.”

Max licks his lips and tastes the dried blood on them, “Well, then… We can’t have that, can we?”

“No, sir,” Croquet responds.

“Assign Mook’s pet Plant to the task.  We need to test his true loyalty,” he orders.  

“Alive or dead, master?”

“Alive preferably, but I’m not picky.  Tell him to keep Mutuo’s brain intact.  I might need pull more memories out later,” Max sneers.  “And make it quick.  I don’t have all day.”

Croquet nods and disappears with a crack.  Max takes one more step towards the door before he’s treated to the sound of laughter.

The mage boy that had escaped the island somehow finds this all hilarious.

“Something to say, brat?” Max asks unkindly.

“Yeah,” the mage says.  “When Bakura finds you, he’s going to kill you.”

“You think that, do you?” Stupid boy.  No one outside of the Department knows where this island is.  They’re protected from any kind of detection.   _And even if the Thief King could find us,_ Max thinks, touching the golden orb in his socket.   _I have this_.

“No.  I know so,” the mage states, a grin wide across his face.  “He’s going to kill you.”

“ _Idiot_ ,” Max hisses and turns away.   _I was chosen for this.  Let them come.  Let them all come.  I was chosen.  I was chosen._

He slams the door behind him and doesn’t look back.

* * *

 

Reiko sits calmly in the passenger seat of the Prius and waits to be taken to the next location.  Her hands are bound together with a thin string that Amanda Green had wrapped around her wrists while chanting ancient words of power, binding her to the Spellcaster’s will by the name her mother gave her.  Reiko hadn’t said anything then about how Green was using Mala Pukar’s exact techniques, but her mind had been anything but blank or still.

Tris and Nat had joined the Inner Circle sometime in the mid-seventies, the first women to do so since Holly, who was only a few decades younger than Helena herself.  The Department Head had taken a special interest in the two Lab Rats after they’d co-written a paper together about mage abilities spanning across time.  Apparently, there were records of mages from different centuries having the exact same powers as each other, putting a pattern to the seemingly random nature of their craft.

If what the two of them said was true, then perhaps the reason Green knew Pukar’s secrets wasn’t that the old Spellcaster had passed on her knowledge in secret.  Perhaps Green actually _was_ Pukar.

 _If that’s the case_ … Reiko lets her thoughts trail off, unable to finish them.  She stares at Green now, taking in the Spellcaster for all that she is.   _Merlin_.

Amanda Green is strikingly beautiful, all long blonde hair and bright green eyes, her tight clothing hugging the curves of her body in a way that Reiko finds distracting.  Green walks like she’s six feet tall, confident and powerful and radiant.  But she’s also shockingly friendly and sweet, asking Reiko what she wants for dinner as she slides into the driver’s seat and turns the key to fire up the ignition with no hint of malice or hatred.  It’s unnerving to say the least.

“I don’t know,” Reiko says finally, as they pull out of the parking garage beneath Seto Kaiba’s condo and drive into the streets of San Francisco.

“Then we’re getting shawarma.  There’s a great shawarma place down the road from my school.  God, I hope their still in business.  They’re owned by this family from Pakistan and they are the nicest people on the planet, I swear to god.  And they make their own zhug, it’s the greatest--”

Green carries on like that for a while, prattling away about this and that.  Reiko takes it all in, learning about how this family had a son in kindergarten and a daughter in second grade and a set of twins on the way.  Regardless, it takes Reiko an astounding amount of time to clue into the fact that Najma and Layaali, the two people Green is talking about, are a pair of married _women_.  And that shocks the absolute hell out of her.

The thing is, Reiko knows that Green is a lesbian.  She witnessed her kissing a girl with short btown hair goodbye from across the parking lot.  And it’s clearly not a secret from their friends, since they’d all been there at the time.  Reiko had watched as another pair, a large blond man and his slender red-headed male partner held each other’s hands and walked with Green’s girlfriend to the bus stop.

The fact that it’s so normal here, that no one even blinks twice at the idea of two women or two men being together, makes Reiko fist her hands in her robes.   _I’m jealous_ , she realizes.   _Calm down.  This isn’t the time._

Except her memories rise up from the depths of her mind anyways, just like they always seem to be doing these days.  The last time that she’d seen Gara, they’d been eighteen and Ariana Dumbledore had been doomed by not dead.  Helena had promised that they could see each other once more before Reiko’s service had to begin.

Gara had looked as beautiful and serene as ever when Reiko walked into the room on the island.  They’d given her a white silk dress that glinted in the moonlight streaming through the window, her golden hair curling around her face.  She’d looked wild and untamable then, and if Reiko hadn’t been in love before, she’d have fallen then.

“They said they’re taking me to the Gardens,” Gara said.  “Reiko, what have you promised them?  What have you done?”

Reiko reached up and cupped her face in her hands, “It doesn’t matter.  You’ll be safe.”

“They haven’t said anything about Gel.  They’re not saying anything at all,” Gara pleaded.

“It will be alright,” Reiko promised and kissed her softly, trying to memorize the feel and the taste of her, because this would be the last time.  “I love you.  Remember that.  I love you.”

“Reiko, _what have you done_?” Gara asked again, tears streaming down her face.  Reiko wiped them away with her thumbs.

“I love you,” she said again.  There was a knock at the door.  The voice behind it told her to hurry up.  “Forever.  Always.  It will always be you.”

Reiko’s stirred from her thoughts when Green parks the car and reaches into the back seat for her purse, “Got any allergies I should know about?”

“No,” she shakes her head.

“Gonna get you lamb, unless you wanted something else,” Green comments.

“Why are you being nice to me?” Reiko asks.  “If it’s because Atem told you about--”

“Yeah, she told about why you’re here,” Green says, righting herself in her seat.  She sighs and stares blankly at the dashboard.

“If this is pity, I don’t want it.”

“It’s not pity.  It’s-- god, I don’t even fucking know,” Green rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands and groans.  “It’s me pretending to be normal.  Pretending that this is normal.  That I can just go down to my favourite shawarma place that through some luck hasn’t been blown up or that the people inside aren’t dead and that I can just go home to babysit a prisoner of war and maybe Matt will be there instead of on some god forsaken rock in the middle of nowhere!”

She shouts the last bit, voice cracking with anger, with terror.  Reiko blinks at her, saying nothing.

“And I can’t even be angry at you because you’ve been used and abused by the same people who have been trying to kill us for centuries, even though _you’ve_ been killing us for centuries, and I’ve always imagined you being this hulking monster but instead you’re just--” Green pauses to take a breath, gesturing wildly at Reiko, “--just _this_.”

 _Small_ , Reiko thinks.   _Slight.  Young._  There are so many possibilities that Reiko tries to stop thinking about them.  She knows what people see when they look at her.  They see this tiny Asian woman, who they expect to be quiet and gentle, or a dutiful housewife.  They don’t expect the killer underneath.

“How old were you when you killed Mala Pukar?” Green asks suddenly and Reiko’s heart stops in her chest.

[Mission Report  
Assassinate Mala Pukar  
Status: ~~Complete~~  
Error?  Error?]

“Late forties, I think.  I stopped counting after I turned thirty eight,” Reiko says.   _Two decades without Gara._  Then, very carefully, she asks, “You remember being Mala Pukar?”

Green doesn’t say anything for a minute or two.  Finally, she whispers, “God, you were young.  I remember seeing you in the market... Figured I was being old and paranoid for thinking you were stalking me.  Turns out I was right.”  Green chuckles humourlessly, “So, you guys know about cycling, then?”

“Is that what you call it?  Cycling?” Reiko tries the word out on her tongue.

Green hums in acknowledgement, “Yeah.  What do you call it?”

“Reincarnation, mostly.  Nat always used to group each mage into sequences.  But she would never have guessed that you could actually _remember…_ ” Reiko stares at Green in wonder.  “How is that even possible?  To knock memories loose on a spiritual scale would take--”

“A freaking magical nuke.  Yeah.” Green frowns suddenly, “A nuke is--”

“I know what a nuclear bomb is.”

“Seriously?  ‘Cause a few of the wizard born mages we’ve run into don’t even know that the earth goes around the sun.”

“I like learning about history.  Both sides of it: non-magic and wizard,” Reiko shrugs.  “All _three_ sides, actually.  Got to include you guys, too, I guess.”

Green nods somberly and says nothing else.  Reiko clamps down on the need to fidget from the silence.  “I’m not sorry that I killed you.”

“I’m not sorry for what I did either, so I guess we’re even,” Green says stiffly.  She sighs again and arches her back into a stretch.  Reiko very pointedly does not watch the way her shirt rides up with the motion.  “So, lamb shawarma?”

“Lamb shawarma,” Reiko repeats, then smirks.  “Extra hot sauce?”

“Oh my god, girl, it’s like you know me or something,” Green smiles, talking to Reiko like she can’t just order her to do anything she wants.  “Stay here.  I’ll be right back.”

 _Let her pretend,_ Reiko thinks as she watches Green practically skip into the tiny stop.  The two women behind the counter greet her with open arms and tears of joy, their children clinging to Green’s legs.   _Give her these last few moments of normalcy before war tears her apart again.  And…_ Reiko thinks of Gara, wrapped in silk and moonlight _...Let me pretend, too.  Just for a moment.  Let me be a child again._


	5. Reinforcements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The San Francisco International Airport is owned by the City & County of San Francisco. Uber Technologies Inc. is founded by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp. Born to be Wild is written by Steppenwolf. The San Francisco Giants are owned by the San Francisco Baseball Associates LLC. The New York Yankees are owned by Yankee Global Enterprises. The Toronto Maple Leafs are owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. 
> 
> Warning: Mentions of racism, sexism, biphobia, Nazis, classism, sexual situations (Bakura x Marik x Atem), accidental voyeurism, panic attacks, abuse, and asexuality denial.

Bakura leans against the wall in the arrivals area of San Francisco International Airport’s second terminal.  The board says that the flight they’re waiting for has been delayed by another half hour.  He sighs dramatically, looking over to where Tea and Seto are sitting down, huddling over Tea’s laptop.  Slightly off to the side, Atem is tapping something out on the burner phone that Duke set her up with.

“You’re frowning,” Bakura says.

“I am,” she agrees.

“Are you going to tell me why you’re frowning?”

“Possibly.”

Bakura sighs, “You use short sentences when you’re frustrated.”

“I’m not frustrated,” Atem says, looking oddly at her phone.  “Who’s Leo?”

Bakura’s heart lurches a little in his chest, “Why do you ask?”

“Tea gave me his number so that we could figure out flights for the Jackals, but he keeps....” He almost startles when he realizes that Atem is blushing.  “Here.  Look.”

And it’s not like Bakura doesn’t know that Leo’s a bit of a tease - because he does.  But it’s still a little bit of a shock to see Leo’s cheeky flirtations on Atem’s phone and not his.

“Baby girl?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at Leo’s nickname for her.

“Yes, well, apparently you’re pretty boy, so I don’t think this is a war you can win,” Atem smirks at him.  Bakura chuckles awkwardly.

“Yeah, he… does that,” he tries to hide the fact that his face feels like it’s on fire, but doesn’t really think he succeeds.  “You okay with it?  ‘Cause he’ll stop if you tell him to.”

“I’m…” she doesn’t finish the sentence, just gestures for Bakura to return her phone.  When he does, Atem aimlessly turns it in her hands for a few seconds before continuing again.  “Would you be okay with it, if I was?”

“You don’t need my permission to--”

“It’s not that and you know it,” she frowns at him.  And, okay, Bakura  _ does _ get where she’s coming from.  Relationships require communication, especially one’s like theirs.

He leans back in his seat and thinks for a minute, “I’m… yeah, I’m cool with it.  With Leo.  And…” Bakura glances at Atem, “Are you okay with him calling me pretty boy?”

“I think so.  Yes, I am,” she nods.

“Oh, good,” he lets out a sigh of relief.

“It’s just… When I was Yuugi, I always used to be wary of people flirting with me.  They always seemed to want something that I wasn’t,” Atem admits.

“What do you mean?”

“They… wanted someone quieter, less outspoken.  Softer,” she shrugs.  “Or, there was one girl who asked if I knew karate like Bruce Lee - because all Asian people are apparently the same.  It just grated on me after a while, so I kind of just gave up on dating white people.  I mean, I don’t know if Leo’s white, but--”

“When I was Ryou, there was this guy, Sam.  Sam Rowle.  He was a classmate,” Bakura almost whispers.  He doesn’t mind talking about Ryou all that much, but when it come to the people he’d known, it always seems to hurt more.  “He came from an old family.  Very powerful.  Very rich.  He was never all that good at arithmancy, but he got it into his head that I was because, you know… Asian.  I wasn’t, but it seemed like a good trade at the time.  I did he homework, and he offered protection.  It worked, for a while.”

“Ryou…” Atem blinks.  “You were Japanese?  Before?”

“Half.  My father was white.  It was safer to remind people I was his son and not my mother’s.”

Atem nods while she digests that information, “It’s different now, though.  Being black.”

And wasn’t that the truth.  A few weeks into his stay in San Francisco, one of the people who lived above the dry cleaners across the street from  _ Nomad _ called the cops on him for trying to ‘break into’ his own apartment.  It had taken Mai shouting at the officers and Tristan’s hand on Bakura’s shoulder to finally get them to leave, since they weren’t going to listen to him.  Bakura had learned from an early age not to trust the city guard, but even he could tell that this was something else entirely.

Bakura glances around the airport.  There’s a security officer in the corner that’s been eying them since they walked in.  And the woman two rows in front of them keeps clutching her purse every time Bakura so much as even looks her way.

“Yeah, it’s different,” he agrees.  “Not worse, not better.  Just--”

“Different,” Atem finishes his sentence for him.  Then, very suddenly, she snorts with laughter.  “You realize that if we ever go public, the right wing is going to be  _ so _ pissed off?  Three coloured bisexuals in a polyamorous relationship are chosen by the gods of old to rule over humanity - they wouldn’t be able to handle it.  I’m a woman.  You’re a peasant.  The King Commander was born in Iraq.  None of us are Christian.  And I’m not even going to get started on our hair.”

Atem runs her hands through her bright red curls and chuckles.  But Bakura barely notices.

“Bisexual?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  That was rude to presume,” Atem apologizes.  “Are you bi?  I’m queer myself, but if that’s not what you--”

“There’s… a word for it?  Liking both?” Bakura asks.  His heart is pounding in his chest.   _ She’s amazing, _ he thinks.  Atem’s purple eyes dance before him, her hands are warm when they curl around his.   _ How did this happen?  What in the world convinced someone like her to fall for someone like me? _

“ _ Oh _ ,” she breathes, understanding.  “Oh, Bakura.  Of course, there is.”

“I just… You were either gay or you weren’t, that’s what I knew as Ryou.  I mean, I know that everyone here knows we were all together, but maybe-- I don’t know.  Maybe it was fine--  _ all _ of it was fine... because it was just  _ us _ ,” he rambles, looking down at their hands.  His knuckles as covered in old scars, his fingers calloused from hard work.  He vaguely remembers her’s being lily soft the first time he’d held them, but now Atem’s hands bare the same marks as his.   _ I love you _ , he wants to say.   _ I love him, too - wherever he is. _

She shakes her head, “There’s so much more to sexuality, to gender, than just men or women.  There’s so much more to human existence than our religions and our class and the colour of our skin and  _ fuck anyone  _ who believes otherwise-- you both taught me that.  Gods know that I’ll fight any backwards Nazi if given the chance.”

“Thanks.  Really, thank you.  And… me too, if people ever give you shit,” he says and presses his lips to her cheek.  When he pulls away, Atem smiles and his heart skips a beat.   _ She’s so beautiful. _  “I think I’ll stick with it, though.  Bisexual,” he clarifies when she raises an eyebrow.  Atem hums in response and leans into his side.

They sit like that for a few more minutes before Bakura starts to laugh.  Atem frowns, “What now?”

“I’m just imagining the pureblood families figuring out who we are.  They  _ love _ their version of the Three Kings legend.”

“‘Pureblood’?  Oh, that’s not bringing up imagery of white robes and burning crosses  _ at all _ ,” Atem says sarcastically.  “Alright, how badly did they butcher our lives?  Because the non-magic version is pretty bad, too.”

“Well, for one: we’re white,” he pauses as she groans in annoyance.  “Apparently, I’m secretly, like, your fifth cousin three times removed or something, because they couldn’t have a King that was as common as dirt.  In some versions, you and the King Commander are married, but you’re a adulteress and having an affair with me because he’s always away on campaign and you’re  _ lonely _ .  Also, we’re wizards.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.  Wizards didn’t exist back then.”

“And in the paintings, you’re always wearing this sopping wet white dress and have  _ legs for days-- _ ”

“I do have nice thighs, so that’s one thing they got right,” she notes dryly.

“Hurray,” Bakura throws his hands up and wiggles his fingers in mock celebration.  “The King Commander is like, eight feet tall and  _ jacked _ , which is technically true.  I, however, do not have my badass scar in any painting that I’m in, which is  _ rare _ \-- people really tried to write me out of history, now that I think about it.  Oh, and apparently Seth is a total romantic.”

“Seth couldn’t flirt his way out of a paper bag,” she laughs.

“He wrote  _ poetry _ , Atem.  They have actual, real-life copies.”

“Oh god,” she gasps, eyes wide.  “Oh god, that’s ridiculous.  Who was he writing to?”

“ _ Kisara _ ,” he whispers conspiratorially.  “Apparently, they got married.”

“When?  Why?” Atem questions.  “Gods above,  _ how? _ ”

“According to legend, he  _ wooed _ her.”

Suddenly, Atem goes very, very silent.  Bakura is worried.  She brings a shaking hand to her lips, “Do you think… they were together when we were alive?”

Bakura blinks, grasping at the few memories that he has of Seth and Kisara’s interactions.  They’d been close, he’d known that much.  But--

“No.  There’s-- there’s no way--” Bakura stutters.

“Is there?”

“He didn’t even know we were together until he literally  _ walked in on us-- _ ”

“He was mortified,” Atem smirks.

“You walk in on your baby sister screwing two guys on a desk and see if you’re not.  I thought he was going to kill me  _ and I was immortal at the time _ ,” Bakura rolls his eyes.

“It’s not like we were hiding our relationship,” she shrugs.

“That’s my point!  There’s no way that he could have been secretly dating Kisara and not have picked up on the fact that we were all together,” Bakura implores.

“There’s exactly zero correlation between those two statements,” Atem says.

“Stop using big words.”

“No.”

“You’re the worst.”

“I bet it was love at first sight, too,” Atem says with a grin that belongs more on his face than hers.  “Bet they were together for longer than we were.”

“The.  Actual.   _ Worst _ .”

“You love me anyways.”

From the look on her face, Atem didn’t mean to let that slip.  They’d been carefully navigating around the ‘L’ word ever since she came back, worried that it might be too early, that they might be too incomplete.  But now that it’s out there, Bakura wonders why they’d thought such a thing in the first place.

“I do.  Against all better judgement, I do,” he says softly.  Bakura leans in and tucks his face into the crook of her neck.  Atem’s arms wrap around him, fingers clutching the fabric of his jacket, and holds him tight.  “I love you, too.”

They stay like that until the plane lands.

* * *

Amane gets the letter on a dreary Thursday evening.  The large barn owl hoots softly at the dinner table and sticks out it’s leg towards her.  She unties the letter with numb hands.

“Well?” Her father says, his voice flat and unreadable.  “Open it, girl.”

She glances at her mother, who offers her a small nod before going back to staring at the wall.  There used to be a painting of their family hanging there, stiff and formal, barely moving at all, but now there is only a blank space.  Her father is having a new one commissioned, one that won’t include Ryou in it.

Amane runs her fingers over the yellow parchment, seeing  _ Ms. A. Andrews, Third Bedroom, 46 Hawthrone Row, The Grange, Edinborough _ on the front.  She pulled out the letter and read.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL  _ of _ WITCHCRAFT  _ and _ WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore   
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,   
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

 

Dear Ms. Andrews,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September.  We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

 

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress

 

There’s a second piece of paper behind the letter, showing all of the things that they’d need to buy between now and the start of school.  Amane swallows the lump in her throat when her father instructs her to hand it over.

“They still have the ridiculous rule about brooms,” James Andrews mutters darkly, flashing her a look.  “Not that you’ll be going anywhere near a broom.  No man wants a Quidditch player for a wife.”

If Amane weren’t deathly terrified of heights, she’s make it her goal to become a Beater right then and there.

“Nat, you’ll take her shopping.  I have to finish off the chapter I’m working on.  I want you back before four o’clock,” he passes the list over to her mother.  “Do not bring shame to our family.  We’ve already had enough because of your brother.  We don’t need any more.”

Amane ducks her head, hiding her tears behind her hair.

“May I be excused?” She asks, “I’m not hungry.”

“You may,” her father says as he uses his fork and knife to cut into his steak.

Amane controls her breathing until she closes the door of her room.  She leans against it, shoving her fist in her mouth and muffling her scream.  Tears run down her face.  She feels like throwing up.

_ “If something happens, you need to disassociate yourself from me,” _ Ryou had whispered to her all those months ago in the room just down the hall.   _ “Enroll under mother’s maiden name or go to a different school.  I don’t care.  Just don’t let them know that I’m your brother.” _

_ Too late for that, _ she thinks.   _ I don’t want to go.  I can’t-- _ _ I can’t do this! _

Her stomach rolls and Amane manages to get to the dustbin just in time to throw up what she’d had for dinner.  Her chest tightens uncomfortably as her lungs try to keep up with her racing mind.  She can’t breathe.  Her hands shake uncontrollably.

_ I don’t want to go. _

She doesn’t know how long she sits there, bent over the dustbin, rocking back and forth while she tries to force air into her lungs.  But suddenly, there’s a hand on her back and she’s pulled into a comforting embrace.

“Amane-chan,” her mother whispers, both for comfort and our of fear.  If her father heard her speaking Japanese, the consequences would be dire.  “Breathe with me.  Breathe.  It’ll be okay.”

_ No, no, no.  I can’t.  I’m not ready.  I can’t-- _

“It’s alright.  Breathe with me, together.  Ready?  In,” Natsuki takes an exaggerated breath and Amane follows suit, the lungs burning as the air hits them.  “And out.  Again, in… and out.”

They sit there together for a long time, until Amane can feel like she can breathe again without her mother’s assistance.  She’s sweaty, cold and shivering.  Her fingers ache from where she’s been gripping the edge of the dustbin so hard that her knuckles are white.  She forces herself to let go and the feeling comes back into her fingers.  Amane sags in relief and falls into her mother’s shoulder.

“You did it.  You did so well.  I’m so proud of you, Amane-chan.” Her mother’s smile has never been wide or expressive, but it is warm and bright.  Amane hasn’t seen it in years.  “Do you think you can move to the bed?”

She nods and stands on shaking limbs, still feeling a bit out of sorts.  Amane wills her feet to move, taking one step and then another, until the mattress dips under her own weight.  Natsuki moves to sit beside her and pulls her into another hug.

“If father hears you…” Amane whispers in Japanese, her voice hoarse.  She’s always been good at picking up languages, even during the secret, hurried lessons that her mother had given her and Ryou.  Ryou had been passable, able to hold a simple conversation, but Amane is practically fluent at the age of ten.

“He won’t.  He left again,” her mother tells her.  Amane’s heart lurches hopefully.

“Again?  Where does he go?” 

“He’s looking for another rare novel,” Natsuki lies.  Amane wouldn’t know if not for the fact that this is the same excuse that her mother has used for her father’s disappearance for nearly four years now.

“I don’t want to go to Hogwarts,” she admits.

“I know.  But your father will never allow you to go anywhere else,” her mother says.

“You went to Mahoutokoro.  I could, too,” Amane points out, but she knows that it’s useless.  Mahoutokoro is a dream that she’ll never be able to see.

“No, you can’t.  And you know why.  He won’t let you,” her mother shakes her head.  “So what are you going to do?”

She doesn’t know.  Her brain has only just started to work again, she doesn’t need this right now.  Amane hides her face in her mother’s shoulder and just wants it all to be over.  Except, she knows that it won’t.

Tomorrow morning, she and her mother apparate over to Diagon Alley, armed with her list for school.  Their first stop is Gringott’s Bank, the tall white building at the end of the street that towers over all the other shops, a startling four stories.  She tries not to stare at the goblin guarding the heavy bronze doors.  What she does look at, though, is the engraved words on the inner silver doors.

 

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take, but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn,

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there

 

Amane touches the words reverently, thinking of her brother.  Ryou told her of about the small stash of stolen goods that he’d had behind the wall of his bed in the Slytherin dorm.  She doesn’t have many good expectations of Hogwarts, but she likes to think that one day, she might be able to find it.

“Amane, come along,” her mother calls to her in English.  She trots over and stands beside Natsuki in the queue.

“Next,” croaked the goblin behind the desk, staring blankly at them.  Natsuki hands over a tiny golden key.

“I’d like to make a withdrawal from my husband’s account,” she tells him, eyes flicking to the whispering couple behind them.

“Of course, Mrs. Andrews.  This way,” the goblin smiles in a way that Amane thinks is supposed to be polite, but she finds it more threatening than anything else.  “Nurnok!”

Nurnok was short, even for a goblin, standing almost a foot and a half shorter than Amane herself.  Beardless, dark skinned, and possessing incredibly long fingers, the goblin took the key and motioned for the two women to follow.

They rattled into the underground vaults in a surprisingly sturdy mining cart.  Amane watched the blend of browns and blacks speed past her as they descended lower and lower into the ravine.  She didn’t dare look down, knowing that it would cause her knees to shake all over again.

The cart slowed to a halt in front of the Andrews’ family vault.  For nearly five hundred years, her father’s family had kept their wealth behind these doors.  It was a modest fortune, mounds of gold and silver and bronze.  Aside from the protective green smoke that billowed out of the vault when Nurnok opened the door, designed to knock out anyone with a false key, there were no other protections.  Her family didn’t have the money or the status to afford anything more than that.

After collecting the money they needed, Natsuki carefully recorded what Amane had taken in the notebook her husband had given her - James Andrews was as controlling with his money as he was anything else.  Nurnok escorted them back into the cart.

It’s only as their rocketing towards the surface that Amane notices it, “You’re a woman.”

“Very observant, Ms. Andrews,” Nurnok’s grin is full of pointed teeth.  “What gave it away?”

“You don’t have a beard,” she says.

“I do not,” the goblin answers.

“You don’t see a lot of lady-goblins,” Amane says.

“Maybe you do, nut you just don’t know it,” Nurnok cackles.

“Everyone else had a beard,” she points out.  “You’re the only lady who works at Gringotts.”

Nurnok laughs outright, “The men work the front.  The women work the back.”

“Then why are you here with us?”

“Perhaps you just got lucky.”

“I don’t get lucky,” Amane scowls, thinking of her father, of her brother.

Nurnok blinks and stares at her for a very long time.  When the cart slows again, the tunnels around them getting lighter, the goblin reaches out and wraps her long fingers around Amane’s hands.

Natsuki tenses, but does nothing.  Sometimes Amane forgets that her father doesn’t allow her to carry a wand unless she’s in his presence.

“You didn’t get lucky.  I wanted to see you,” Nurnok says.

“What do you want with my daughter?” Natsuki questions.

“I wanted to meet the sister of Ryou Andrews,” Nurnok explains.  Amane’s blood runs cold.  “Fate has it’s eyes on you.  I wanted to know why.”

Amane snatches her hand back, “Don’t touch me.”

“The world is changing, girl.  How it will change, I don’t know.  But you must do your part.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Listen to me,” Nurnok grasps her shoulder roughly.  “There is blood in the brick, blood in the grounds, and death sown into the very fabric of the land.  But within those walls, beneath the earth, there are secrets so large that it could topple everything.”

“Let go of her!” Natsuki stands, but Nurnok doesn’t even react.

“The Secret Keeper, the daughter of Albion, will come for you.  Help her.  Trust her.  Find the God beyond the Rip.  Learn the Truth.  The future rests on your shoulders, Ms. Andrews,” Nurnok hisses, her mouth full of teeth.  “Be careful.”

The goblin lets her go, jumping over the edge of the cart and disappearing behind the high desks in the Gringotts’ foyer.

“Are you okay?” Her mother implores, taking Amane’s shoulders in her hands.  Someone is trembling; it might be her, it might be Natsuki.  “Did she hurt you?”

She’s speaking in Japanese again.  Amane nods frantically, hoping that it will get her mother speaking English again.  No one can know.  Her father can’t know.

They rush out of Gringotts, ignoring the whispers of those waiting in line.  People are staring.  Amane wants to tell them all to shut up, to mind their own damn business, but her mother is with her and she can’t draw attention to her.  Amane’s angry, utterly furious, but she keeps her head down and her clenched fists in her pocket.  

_ They don’t know anything,  _ she thinks.   _ Let them talk. _

“We’re getting you a wand.  Right now,” Natsuki states and tugs her towards  _ Ollivander’s _ .

The wand shop looks different from how she remembers it from the trip they’d taken to get Ryou his first wand.  Amane doesn’t really remember much of how it had looked before they’d come in, but by the time that Ryou had found a wand that didn’t either explode in his hands or destroy entire sections of the back wall, there wasn’t much of a shop to remember.  She’d sat there for hours on end, refusing to step away from her brother’s side the entire time, even with her father firmly stating that she should wait outside with her mother.

He’d beat her for that when they got home.  But he couldn’t have done that in front of Ollivander, so Amane took refuge in that.

Today, she’s greeted by the sound of a tiny, tinkling bell and the smell of aging wood.  Amane blinks up at the wall filled with thousands of narrow boxes, stacked right up to the ceiling.  She traces her finger through the dust on the front desk.

“Good morning,” a soft voice calls out.  Amane gasps as an old man steps out of the shadows, pale eyes appearing to gaze right through her.  “Ms. Andrews.  And Mrs. Andrews.  I’m so sorry about your loss.  Young Ryou was a good child, for all the wands he destroyed.”

It’s… That’s… Amane sees tears in her mother’s eyes, tears that she doesn’t allow to fall.  It’s the first time that anyone has actually expressed sorrow for Ryou’s death.  It hurts more than she’d expected it to.

“Thank you,” Natsuki whispers, as if she was terrified that her husband is listening.

“No Mr. Andrews today, is there?” Mr. Ollivander raises an eyebrow, “Never liked him too much.  Hornbeam and dragon heartstring, like mine.  But it was always too short; I thought I’d never sell it.  Hornbeam is a tricky wood, too willing to follow it’s master’s ideals.  But you, Ms. Andrews… Let’s see what surprised you have for us.”  He pulls out a silvery marking tape.  “Which is your wand arm, my dear?”

After her measurements are taken, Ollivander passes her several wands that he rejects almost as suddenly as he puts them in her hands.  There’s a pile of opened boxes that is growing larger by the minute, until all of a sudden--

“Yes-- yes, I think this might be it-- no, not that one, but-- here!  A bit odd, but I think this might just be it.  Ash, unicorn hair, nine inches.  Pliable, yes.  Give it a wave.”

Amane knows it the moment that she takes it in hand.  It feels like all the stories that she’d been told as a child: a sudden warmth in her fingers, the feeling of coming home.  She raises it over her head and smiles as a stream of shadows streaks with gold shoot from the end.  She bounces around, clutching the wand to her chest, “I did it!  I did it!”

Her mother smiles down at her, whispering in Japanese, “You did, Amane-chan!  It was beautiful.”

“Ash and unicorn hair, quite an interesting combination,” Ollivander says.  “That is an unquestionably loyal wand you have there-- it will never work in the hands of another.  Stubborn, like it’s master.”  He places a hand over the wand, as if he was saying goodbye, “Yes.  Stubborn, but never arrogant.  You will be one to watch out for, my dear.”

_ Fate has it’s eyes on you _ , Nurnok had said.   _ The future rests on your shoulders _ .  Amane swallows hard, clenching her fingers around the hilt of the wand.  She doesn’t know what to make of all of this.  It’s always been about Ryou, for as long as she remembers-- Amane barely knows who she is without her brother.  But now, there’s all of these other people looking at  _ her _ , not Ryou, and saying that she has to step up.

She doesn’t know if she can do it.

They pay the seven Galleons and leave the shop.  She wants to go home.  She wants her brother back.  She wants her father, who  _ knows _ what Keith Howard did to Ryou, who frightens her mother and terrifies Amane more than she’ll ever admit, to just straight up die.

She holds her wand in her hand, staring at the dark wood.  Ryou’s first wand lasted a whole three days before it blew up when he tried to cast his first spell.  He’d been so shaken that even when Keith had taken him back to Diagon Alley and replaced it, Ryou had refused to touch it until his first class at Hogwarts.  Even then, that wand had lasted all of a week, and the one after that had lasted five days.  Wands had never been something permanent.  They were always gone.

Like Ryou.

Except, Ollivander had promised that this one would stay, that it would never work for anyone else.  Amane’s lips twitch into a small smile, something that hasn’t happened in so,  _ so _ long.

_ Stubborn? _  She thinks,  _ I can work with that. _

* * *

 

Kisara-- now, Cassandra Bleu, works for the Jackals.  Bakura’s is wearing a shit eating grin that is so wide that it’s probably hurting the guy’s face.  Atem’s expression is schooled and professional, but the glint in her eyes when she looks his way means she’s laughing inside.

Seto wants to crawl under a rock and never come out.  He also wants to wrap his arms around Cassandra, cling to her forever, just like they have for a hundred lifetimes.

Cassandra has no idea who she is.  It shouldn’t hurt, because there have been cycles where one of them didn’t recover their memories until years after their meetings.  Except it does, every single time.

Seto nearly has a heart attack when she walks into the arrivals zone, long silvery braid swinging behind her back.  Cassandra smiled when Tea held up the sign with a poorly drawn jackal head and the caption, “Welcome to SF :)”

“Tea!  It’s so nice to finally meet you!” She’d said, her voice thick with a French accent.  She kisses Tea on each cheek, grinning the whole time, “Leo’s always talking about you.  He’s going to be so jealous that I got to meet you first.”

“You know Leo?” Tea asks.

“We’re good friends.  Sometimes…” Cassandra’s smile had taken on a sad tint, “Sometimes he needs someone to help him out.  And--”  God, it punched the air right of his lungs when she’d looked his way, “Mind introducing me to your friends?”

So here he is, shaking hands and introducing himself to his wife, to the mother of his children, to one of the great loves of his life, and Seto has to smile and keep himself from shaking while his friends find this hilarious, apparently.  It kind of is, now that he thinks about it.  He regrets whatever it was about the Thief King and the King Commander that convinced Atem to get a sense of humour.

“Seto Kaiba,” he says.  “It’s good to see you.  This is my sister--”

“Atem,” she introduces herself, moving forwards and grasping Cassandra’s hand in both of her’s.  “Thank you for coming.  This is Bakura.”

She gestures towards the Thief King, who doesn’t move, just nods his head towards Cassandra and offers her a promising smirk, “Hey.”

“Hi,” Cassandra says right back.  Then, she motions towards those who’d followed her off the plane.  “These are the Jackals. Um, one second.”

She turns towards the boy approaching her back.  His head is shaved and there are ten different piercings on his face alone.  Dark circles ring his wide eyes, his brown skin sickly pale from a lack of sun.  He blinks, pupils tracking over to Cassandra and watches her hands attentively as she starts to sign.

Seto raises an eyebrow,  _ Oh _ .

There’s a silent conversation that completely goes over Seto’s head, though he’s making a note in his head that, after he brushes up on his Gobbledegook, he’s going to start on ASL.

“She’s introducing us to him,” Atem says, because of course she knows sign language - hell, she probably knew three different dialects.  What’s surprising is that she’s not addressing Bakura, whose fingers are twitching at his side and muttering under his breath as he  _ follows the conversation _ with a little bit of difficulty.  Seto’s always assumed that languages weren’t an easy thing for the Thief King to learn, judging by how slow his speech had been back in the day.

Perhaps it had something to do with the physical movements behind the signs or that Bakura could actually  _ see _ this language in motion.  Seto thinks of Joey and how he learned things by just doing them and wonders if there’s something similar going on with Bakura.  And if the Thief King truly had a visually-based eidetic memory like Amanda said, maybe ASL was one of the few languages that Bakura would be able to learn with some kind of ease.

“This is Strings,” Cassandra says when she finishes, introducing her friend.  “He’s an illusionist.  And these are Lumis and Umbra, they’re immune--”

Seto stops listening at that point, mainly because his heart is hammering in his chest.   _ An illusionist and a pair immune to magic _ .  And they’re all standing next to Cassandra-- to Kisara.  He looks at Duke out of the corner of his eye and sees the same expression.  Beside him, Atem takes Bakura’s hand in her’s.

_ The Jackals are the Medjay.  They’ve been with us the entire time. _

He wants to tell Mokuba.  But he can’t, because his brother is on an island in the middle of the ocean, alone and terrified.  Seto would like to imagine that Mokuba is fighting for his life, because it’s a lot better than the alternative.  He lets himself smile a little at the thought of his brother giving his captures all kinds of hell.   _ He’s probably already tried to choke one,  _ he thinks, a little fondly.

Between Mai and Duke (who’s taken over Matthew’s network of questionable contacts with an ease that frightens Seto a little), they’ve managed to find a place for everyone to stay.  Tea had been firing texts back and forth with Leo all day, trying to figure out rooming arrangements for twenty different people.  She’d also managed to summon an army of Uber drivers to get them to the hotels and houses they’d all be staying at.

Seto had opened his guest room to the Jackals, and low and behold, Tea had set him up with Cassandra.  He can’t figure out if he’s lucky or not.

He texts Joey the moment she’s settled into her room and starts unpacking.

 

Cassandra Bleu is Kisara <

 

It takes exactly three seconds for his phone to start singing:  _ ~Get your motor runnin’!  Get out on the highway!~ _

Seto snorts and answers.  Joey doesn’t even allow him to say hello.

“Are you okay?”

“Joey--”

“No.  Shut up.  You’re not doing this.”

“Doing what?”

The static-y sigh that Joey lets out goes on for a full three seconds, “The thing where you pretend that this isn’t a big deal and that I’m ‘overreacting’-- which I’m not, by the way.  So just answer the damn question, Seth.  Are you alright?”

He… doesn’t think he can answer that because he has no idea.  Joey calls his name a few times to make sure he’s still on the line before trying a different approach, “Do you want me to come over?”

Seto wants to say no, wants to say  _ yes _ , but instead what comes out it, “She doesn’t remember.”

“Jesus, man.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.  Do you want me to come over?” Joey asks again.

_ I shouldn’t _ , he thinks.  Then, “Yes.”

“Alright.  Give me, like, five minutes.  You gotta change of clothes for me?”

“There’s a bag on the roof,” Seto says, remembering the waterproof backpack filled with clothes that he keeps up on top of his condo for unplanned transformations.

“Good, ‘cause I don’t think Kisara will appreciate my naked ass, like you will,” Joey chirps.  “See you soon, rich boy.”

He hangs up the phone before Seto can say anything.   _ He always wants to have the last word, _ he thinks.   _ Thank you.  Thank you.  I-- _

There’s a large shadow that flies over top the building, indicating that Joey was quicker than anticipated.  There’s a large thump on the roof.  Cassandra sticks her head out of the guest room door.

“Expecting someone?”

“Yes.  My friend is coming over,” he explains, trying not to start tapping his fingers on the glass table top.  He fails miserably, but it gives him a little comfort regardless.

“I can clear out if you--” she starts, but Seto shakes his head.

“It’s… It’s alright,” he starts, but then Joey bursts through the front door like he owns the place.

And Seto’s mind kind of stalls because Cassandra walked out of her room looking stunning in a sundress and sandals while Joey is very clearly wearing Seto’s old shirt that stretches across his broad shoulders and--

Seto doesn’t feel attraction very often.  He has to feel close enough to someone before there’s anything, but Seto’s always had great difficulty letting people get that close to him.  There’s a word for it now: demisexual - a word that he could have really needed to hear during the years he’d lived with Gozaburo.  It’s a comfort to know that there are people like him, that there isn’t something wrong with him.

Except, of course, right now the two people that he’s wanted for so long are in the room and looking utterly amazing and Seto can’t really form words right now.  His mind races inside his head,  _ Joey’s with Mai.  Joey has a girlfriend.  Cassandra could be in a relationship, you don’t know, you don’t know anything about her.  This was a mistake, I never should have-- _

“Hey,” Joey’s smile is bright, shining like a goddamn sun.  He raises his hand in greeting as he walks over to Kisara, “Joey Wheeler.  Nice to meet you.”

“Cassandra,” she says, taking his palm in her’s.  

“Seriously, though.  Thank you for coming out.  We need all the help we can get, and from what I hear, you are a  _ tank _ .” 

And just like that, Joey starts talking, starts to pull the tension from the room.  Within five minutes, Joey has managed to get permission for them to call her Cassie and offers her a beer from Seto’s fridge.  Before he knows it, the three of them are having a conversation about sport’s teams.  Seto supports the Giants, which Joey ‘Yankees-or-Bust’ Wheeler will never forgive him for.  Kisara shocks them all by saying she watches a lot of hockey (“I’ve been Stockholm Syndromed into liking the Leafs.  I’m not exactly sure how that happened.”) and proceeds to explain the game because neither of them know anything about it.  At some point, Mai and Haley come over and Cassie just  _ cooes _ over the little girl in a way that makes Seto remember their own children from all their cycles together, but it doesn’t hurt the way it used to.

He wishes Mokuba were here.  He wishes Matthew were here.  He misses his family so much that he shoots a text off to Atem, who drags a pouting Bakura with her.  Haley is delighted at the appearance of her favourite babysitter and spends the rest of the night attached to the Thief King’s hip.

“I’m sorry,” Atem says at one point, when they’ve got a moment to themselves in the kitchen.

Seto blinks at her, “For what?”

“Early today.  I was being inappropriate.”

“It’s…” He starts, but then sighs.  “Alright, maybe I didn’t like it at the time, but now… I’m alright.  Really.  All this, it helps.”  Seto offers her a smirk, “Besides, now it means that you’re fair game.”

“Bakura and I are--”

“Nope.  For when the King Commander shows up.”

It’s not often that he catches Atem by surprise, so he relishes in the moment a little as her eyes widen ever so slightly.

“He…?  What?”

“The Dragon Princess is here.  So is the Silent Swordsman.  So are some of his other lieutenants.  They’re part of the Jackals, Atem.  So that means--”

“It might not be the case.  The cycles have rarely ever matched up to our original lives--”

“Except this one, it has,” Seto implores.  “I bet you anything that the King Commander is Scorpion  _ King _ .  So when he shows up, I’m going to be  _ insufferable _ .”

He means to make it teasing, but Atem doesn’t really say much.  She looks at the ground and clasps her hands behind her back.  For a moment, he thinks that he’s offended her, but then she glances upwards at him and he sees that she’s trying not to smile.

“ _ Really? _ ” She asks, so utterly hopeful.  

He nods, “Between me and the rest of our family, you’re never going to want to leave the house again.”

Atem stops trying to hide her grin, taking him by surprise, and launches herself at him, throwing her arms around his middle and pulling him into a hug.

“We’ll get them back, Seth,” she whispers.  “I swear it.”

“I know,” and he does.  “Take Cassie with you.”

Atem takes a step back, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.  You’ll need the firepower more than I will.  Take her with you.”  Seto doesn’t like it, but it’s the best decision he can make.  Kisara and him have the exact same powers.  It’ll be like he’s there with her, even though he’s not.

She looks at him strangely for a moment before saying, “I’m glad you came after me, though I’m sad that I missed your reign.  It was probably quite interesting.”

“It lasted a bit longer than yours,” he says sadly.  In reality, he’d ruled for decades, while Atem had been Pharaoh for no more than two years.

“And according to legend, your line lasted for nearly a hundred years afterwards,” she nudges his shoulder and pulls him back towards the living room.

“Legends say a lot of things,” he chuckles.

“Yes.  Because apparently, you became a poet after I died,” Atem smirks.  Seto stops in his tracks.

“Who told you about that?” He asks tentatively.  His sister gives no answer as she walks away, throwing a look over her shoulder that Seto takes as a silent victory cry.  “Damn it, it was Amanda, wasn’t it?  Atem!”

She laughs at him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that, regarding the conversations had in this chapter between people of colour about race and racism, that I am white and therefore am writing about such topics from second-hand experience. If I've written anything that is offensive or just wrong, please tell me and I'll do my best to fix it.


	6. Renegade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tilla has seen Depre Scott have an all-encompassing emotional reaction exactly once before, back in Belfast when he'd abandoned his mission and came to get her. There had been fear in his eyes then, awe and love and utter terror at the thought of losing her. Now she watches as it happens again, feeling breaking through years of torture, eyes widening and breath shortening. Depre's grip on her wrists is tight but not bruising.
> 
> "What?" He sounds utterly destroyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The Crucible and all it’s characters are owned by Arthur Miller.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of imprisonment without cause, mental and physical torture, starvation, racism, homophobia, alcoholism, gore, non-consensual body modification, and past minor character death.

Kisha Borrego doesn't really know how long she's been down here for. If she had to guess, she'd say about three, maybe four days, but that's only going by how often she notices the guards bringing her food. Sometimes after they take her in for questioning, Kisha loses a lot of time, and it's only when Delphine starts to push food towards her mouth does she realize it's meal time.

Unspeakables had broken into her apartment the evening after she'd thrown one of them out of _Putnam's_ , dragging her from her bed and whisking her away to this hellhole. Kisha wonders briefly about her roommate, who'd been out that evening and missed the whole thing. She hopes she's okay, that she's not dead or worse, because who knows what these Unspeakable thugs are capable of.

"Kisha," Delphia whispers, "You need to drink something."

"You need it more than me," she says. Delphia has at least forty years on her and has been looking far too pale ever since she was brought back from her last questioning.

They don't even ask her anything. A Legilimens sits down across from her in a tiny room and spends what feels like hours crawling through her brain and picking her memories apart in the most painful way possible. Kisha tries to throw up what meger shields she can, but she's never been trained. Not only that, but she's missing her wand. They took it from her somewhere between her apartment and the prison cell.

"Here," Delphia presses a cup to her mouth. "It's okay, sweetheart. Just drink. It'll be fine."

Kisha takes small sips of the lukewarm water, wetting her throat and filling her empty stomach. On the other side of the wall, Royce wakes up screaming for his boyfriend.

That's something that he admitted to a few days ago, after he'd had a panic attack and screamed at any passing guard where Shawn was. He refused to say where he'd met Shawn or even what his last name was, but Royce clearly loved this boy with all of his being. And while Kisha can't find it in herself to care - Merlin knows that they have more problems on their plate - Royce's cellmate, Morgan clearly takes issue. He refuses to go near him.

Then again, Morgan refuses to talk to Kisha because she isn't white, so he's probably just an assbackwards bigot in every way possible.

"Royce, it's okay. You're safe, I promise. I _swear_ ," Ellen calls from the cell beside Kisha's. She's been alone in there since they dragged the brain-dead man that lived in the cell before her out into the hallway, never to be seen again. None of them knows who's next.

Ellen continues to talk Royce down, speaking softly and sweetly until his breath evens out. He's wiping the tears from his cheeks when the cellblock door slams open. Kisha's stomach drops when she recognizes the new prisoner.

The large blond man came to _Putnam's_ the day of her abduction, demanding that she turn over receipts from earlier in the week. Kisha would have cooperated, if it weren't for the fact that the man wasn't clearly drunk. She'd just thought that he was some homeless guy pretending to be an Unspeakable- it wouldn't be the first time that happened.

But here he was, being placed into a cell by woman he clearly knew, a woman so shaken and terrified that _he_ was trying to calm her down. Kisha pulls herself towards the bars and watches as the woman locks Drunk Guy in and proceeds to throw up all over herself.

"Tilla, look at me," Drunk Guy clutches at the metal so tightly that his knuckles are white. " _Look at me_."

The woman - Tilla - raises her gaze to lock eyes with him, "I'll take care of our team. I _promise_."

"What did you see? When he…?" Drunk Guy gestures vaguely towards one of his eyes, his jaw clenched and teeth grinding. "Did you see…?"

"Just shut up, you've got bigger things to worry about now," Tilla hisses, her voice hoarse. "I'm going to protect them."

"I need you to tell me if you saw-"

" _Keith, shut up already!_ " Tilla snaps, "You're in enough trouble. We're all in such deep shit and you-" She covers her mouth with her hands, "You need to watch out for yourself now."

She stands and turns away, only to have Drunk Guy reach out and grab her wrist through the bars.

"You did see it, didn't you?" He says. Tilla goes stiff. "They wiped our memories. They _tortured_ us. They-" his voice catches in his throat, "We didn't chose this."

"Keith, let me go-"

"We didn't want this. None of us did. We're- We're not _real_ , Tilla."

"Keith-"

"Don't tell Coppermine," he says suddenly. The woman swallows hard.

"I'm not going to tell _him_ ," she eases her hand from his grip and takes a step back. "Watch your back, Keith."

"You too," he nods. Tilla leaves him there. Kisha watches as the man stands still for all of three minutes before screaming and starting to trash his cell, waking up some of the other prisoners- _Mages_ , Kisha thinks. _They're all mages, waiting to be shipped out to the camp after they failed to convert_. She's so terrified of them- Morgan snaps at him sometime after he bloodies both fists against the brick wall.

"Shut the fuck up, there's no way out of here. We've already tried."

Keith slams his foot into the division between their cells in response. KIsha decides to take a gentler approach.

"I know you…" she says. Keith's eyes snap to hers and widen.

"The girl from the store," he whispers to himself before coming to the bars to talk directly to her, "What are you doing…? No, _fuck_ , of course you're down here. You're a witness."

"They keep searching my memories for those people you were asking about," she tells him. "It's the same with everyone else who's here. They're searching our memories for these kids. Why?"

Keith turns his head away, jaw clamping shut. Kisha wants to punch him in his stupid face.

"Who am I going to tell? Seriously, I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life in this prison. The least I can know is why!"

Keith turns away from the door and stocks towards the back wall, only to kick it again in frustration. His shoulder heave as he pants from exhaustion, before turning back to the bars.

"Do you know about what happened at the Ministry the day those kids walked into your shop?" He says through gritted teeth.

"We were there. The Ministry went into lockdown," Delphia says behind her. Kisha startles, almost having forgotten she was there.

"Auror Ambrose said before she left that some people had stolen our wands to break past Ministry security," Royce continues. "That was the last we heard of anything. Another Unspeakable, this older guy in a suit, rounded us up afterwards. We've been here ever since."

"The papers were saying that there was some kind of an experiment that backfired, but everyone I talked to said that there was some kind of an attack," Kisha says, leaning her forehead against the bars.

Keith nods along, "Yeah, there was an attack, alright. But it wasn't wizards. It was a group of mages."

Kisha's jaw drops, " _What?_ "

"Mages?" Morgon spits, as if oblivious to the identities of those in the cells around them. "Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Mages haven't been a threat to us for a thousand years! How could they possibly have done something like this?"

"Mages are stronger now than they've ever been before. Ever wonder why travel to San Francisco has been impossible for the last five years? It's because they took the city and have been using it as a haven ever since," Keith spits. "They broke into the Ministry to steal classified information from our Archives and then left a path of destruction in their wake so that we couldn't cover it up. And it was all lead by-" Keith freezes, his face contorting into the picture of utter rage. He spits out a name, "Bakura."

"Who's Bakura?" Kisha asks.

"He's probably one of the most powerful mages in history. And…" Keith's fists curl at his side, "He killed my friend. He _used_ me. And when I see him next…

"I'm going to kill him."

* * *

Tilla finds Depre in the middle of his search of the island for Solomon Mutuo. The old man disappeared from his cell sometime after Coppermine brought him back to it after questioning. Tilla's surprised that Coppermine's still alive - after everything that's happened, she'd have guessed that Pegasus would have killed him.

 _Maybe Pegasus doesn't know that Coppermine's the reason he escaped?_ She wonders before cold realization settles in her stomach. _All that man needs to do is look at me and I'll end up killing the kid._

The last she saw of Coppermine, someone had woken him up, pulled him into the break room, and given him some chocolate - if it worked for dementors, it would work for nervous breakdowns. She hopes he'll be okay. Tilla doesn't have many allies anymore; while Depre will follow her into hell and back, she needs another wand, a _stable_ wand, at her side.

"Can I talk to you?" She asks, touching Depre's elbow gently. His eyes flicker to her hand and then up to her face.

 _He should say no. He should say that he has a mission. But instead…_ Tilla almost feels guilty but she knows what's going to happen the moment Depre opens his mouth.

"I can," he nods stiffly. His hands are flickering around his wand. Tilla can see the gears in his brain shifting, going from mission-status to the calm of a briefing. Except… that's not what she wants to talk about.

Tilla leads him to one of the balconies and sits him down in one of the chairs. He watches her patiently as she tries to find the words she needs to use. Finally, she looks up.

"What do you know about the Plant program?"

He tilts his head at the question, his stare unblinking and focused, "I don't understand."

"You remember how you were trained, correct? I want to know how."

"You misunderstand me," Depre says robotically. "I don't understand _why_ you'd want to know."

Tilla frowns, but then takes a good look at him. She's known Depre Scott for just over five years now, so even though he may come off as stiff and emotionless to those who don't know him, he's actually quite easy to read when you knew what to look for. Normally, he'd be the picture of calm, but Tilla can see the tiny tick of tension in his jaw. _He's uncomfortable. He doesn't want to answer._

Cold settles into her veins. Depre could recount missions where he'd done things that made _her_ feel ill. But this… His hesitancy scares her more than anything else.

"Depre," she says, teeth grinding together. _If what Pegasus made me see was real… Oh Merlin, what am I going to do?_ "Was there another group that was trained with you?"

Depre blinks, pauses for a second, before blinking again - that's what surprise look like on his face. Then, in a move that utterly terrifies her, he swallows.

_He's frightened._

"Yes," he answers. "We were separated into two groups when I was…" he thinks about it for a second, "...eight. Those in my group went on to become Plants."

"Do you know what happened to the others?"

He shakes his head, "No."

It's a quick answer. She believes him, but she has to ask, "Are you sure?"

"I don't know. We didn't need to know," Depre says, a little more intensely. He doesn't break eye contact with her. "Do you?"

Tilla's throat tightens, choking her until she feels like she can't breath. Her eyes water uncontrollably, thinking about what she'd seen when Pegasus had turned to Millennium Eye on her-

" _Seedling 123-37F," the man calls and she pushes herself to her feet. She's shaking so badly, beaten and bruised and bleeding. She has to stand. They'll cut her from the roster if she doesn't stand. She doesn't want to die. "Seedling 123-37F. Now."_

_She rises to her feet. The man blasts them out from under her. She feels her bones snap under the pressure. Her left arm is bloody stump._

" _Seedling 123-37F. Stand."_

_She's twelve years old-_

She gasps, shuddering out of the memory, only to find that Depre has moved, grasping her hand and slipping into some persona, something different than _exactly_ _who he is_ and she doesn't want that right now, she just wants-

 _No,_ she thinks. _Don't do this. Not now._

"Don't," Tilla tells him and Depre pulls his hands back like her skin burns him. Except… she doesn't want that either. She reaches for his wrists, pale fingers wrapping around skin black as night. Tilla feels the tension that wracks through his body, feels the shock that her touch sends through him. "Just don't."

"Do you know what happened to them?" He asks, his voice surprisingly hoarse. Depre's hands are shaking.

She nods and thumbs his pulse. It's racing. "They… they called me Seedling 123-37F."

Tilla has seen Depre Scott have an all-encompassing emotional reaction exactly once before, back in Belfast when he'd abandoned his mission and came to get her. There had been fear in his eyes then, awe and love and utter terror at the thought of losing her. Now she watches as it happens again, _feeling_ breaking through years of torture, eyes widening and breath shortening. Depre's grip on her wrists is tight but not bruising.

" _What?"_ He sounds utterly destroyed.

"Pegasus pulled these memories past a… a block," she tries to explain the feeling. She knows what a Obliviation feels like, to have the memories return to you after they've been shoved to the back of her mind. What the Millennium Eye did feels like that, only a thousand times from painful. "He did it to Keith as well. We remembered… I don't want to say-"

"They hurt you?" Depre whispers. "They hurt all of you?"

Tilla expects the first admission from him. She does not expect the second. She'd always known that Depre had a soft heart, even for a Plant, but to think that he'd bonded on some level with the members of their team astounds even her.

She nods again, unable to speak. And then-

Depre takes a very controlled breath, loosen his grip on her wrists before pulls away. He stands suddenly and pulls his wand from his thigh holster. He stalks towards the door.

"Where are you going?" She asks.

Something shifts in Depre's shoulders and when he turns back to her, it's the fluid, cocky persona of the gold-hearted pickpocket with the Cockney accent.

"Got a job, sweetheart," he grins at her, walking backwards with a confident swagger. "The boss gave it to me. I gotta man to find."

"Depre-"

"Don't you worry. Just 'cause I gotta find him doesn't mean I gotta turn him in," Depre's grin turns into something fierce. "Maybe I just wanna talk to him."

 _He's abandoned the Department, just like that,_ she realizes. _He's aligned himself to our team. To me._ It gives Tilla a little bit of hope that if the Plant program didn't kill off every ounce of humanity in him, then there's something real inside of her as well. _We're all in the same boat, always have been._

"I'm going to go check on our people," she tells him. "Be careful."

"Careful? Where's the fun in that?" He laughs, turning and disappearing down the hall with a wave. "I'll see you later, doll."

 _His loyalty is terrifying_ , she thinks. _Thank Merlin for him. We're going to need him in the wars to come. And I…_ Tilla pauses in her thoughts, trying to find the right words _...I will be glad for that._

* * *

He'd left Monthu - Mokuba Kaiba - in the cell. Shimon doesn't think he'll ever be able to forgive himself for that.

He rationalizes it, though, and hopes that Monthu will understand. He's barely walking as it is and he can't use his right arm. If he gets out of this alive, there's no telling if he'll ever fully recover - as much as Solomon doesn't want to think about it, he's pretty sure they'll have to amputate. But then his thinks of Monifa, who was is his daughter and Monthu's own mother, and knows that she'd never speak to him again if she knew.

None of his children, his grandchildren, his _family_ (and there had been so many once, before the wars and the plagues that had felled them) should forgive him for leaving Mokuba Kaiba behind. Shimon hates himself, but he has to keep moving forwards.

 _Atem_. The name rings in his mind as he stumbles through a doorway and into the hallway beyond it. The Lady Pharaoh walks the earth again and it's all he's ever wanted, but he can't help the pit that settles in his stomach. _If she has returned, then that means…_

Yuugi had fallen. Solomon's throat tightens until he can't breathe, eyes watering until he can't see. His granddaughter is dead. Gone. He's never going to see her again, never see her laugh or smile. Solomon remembers all those late nights that they'd spent leaning over the Millennium Pendant, shattered into puzzle pieces, talking about how they could possibly peel away the seal just enough to free the Pharaoh without setting loose the Destroyer.

 _I wanted both of them, but I think I knew that this is how it would always turn out,_ Solomon thinks. Yuugi had been so stunning, so smart and confident and wonderful, and to think that she was _dead_ … He just can't.

He's thinking so much that he almost misses the Unspeakable slumped on the floor. Solomon freezes, then ducks into a small alcove in the wall. The wizard doesn't move, doesn't breathe. Solomon swallows hard. _Is he dead?_

Solomon creeps towards the felled man, getting close enough to see how pale and stiff the corpse is. His eyes are wide with terror. _He died scared and alone._ Solomon wishes that he could bury the boy - because that's all he is, just a child - but he has to keep going.

"Hey!" _Damn it._

Solomon pushes past the pain and forces his body to run. He doesn't even look back as he dashes through the closest door. It's a mistake because he appears to have walked into some kind of meeting room, because there's about five witches and wizards blinking at him. There's a beat where everyone stares at each other before they reach for their wands.

Solomon's never been much of a fighter, but right now he's caged, hurt, and sick with fear. So when the wizard who caught him in the hallway catches up to him, Solomon grabs the man and drags him in front of him, using his body as a human shield. Spells rack the wizard's form, shaking and twisting him into nothing more than a shredded hunk of meat.

Solomon throws what's left of his shield at the closest witch, launching himself at her and pummelling her with his single working fist. He rolls, narrowly avoiding getting hit by an incoming spell. He grabs at one of the bloody splittered bones on the floor and stabs one of the wizards in the neck.

The man coughs and sputters as he collapses to the ground, but Solomon has no such luck. He keeps moving, keeps punching and kicking and biting until there's no one standing but him. He spits blood on the floor and sees chunks of the white bone that were his teeth in the pool on the floor.

 _Damn it. I can't even move_. He can barely think. The pain crashes into him like a truck and drives him to his knees. The world spins around him. _No, not now. Not like this._

There's a figure looming over him. They're saying something, but Solomon can't hear anything but the ringing in his ears. The earth tilts and the ground rises to meet him as the world goes dark.

* * *

[Mission Report  
Capture/Kill Solomon Mutuo  
Status: Aborted]

[They hurt them]

[They hurt them  
They hurt them]

 _[They hurt me_ ]

[Mission Report  
Revenge  
Status: Ongoing]

Solomon Mutuo passes out just as Depre finds him amongst the fallen bodies of his enemies. Depre takes a moment to evaluate the situation and deems Mutuo's actions to be in line with someone running on adrenaline and fear. He doubts that the old man will be as dangerous if Depre has to fight him when he's whole.

He flicks his wand and locks the door, before turning to the old man. Depre was taught healing during his training - he'd had to, if he wanted to live. He remembers taking his wand to himself to mend all sorts of injuries over the years. After he'd been deployed, he'd taken relief in the fact that Tilla had never had to go through that.

[They hurt them  
They hurt me  
They hurt _her_ ]

Depre's fingers involuntarily tighten into fists.

Mutuo's injuries are extensive and, in some cases, life threatening. It takes all of Depre's concentration keep him alive long enough to stabilize his condition. It's worrying. Depre can stop the bleeding, knit his skin back together, and rebuild bone, but his mind is another thing entirely. He knows just how impossible that is to heal.

[#85,470 did well in training. Not too bad, but not perfect. He's average. #85,470 has never been anything special and he's had to fight for that rating ever since he'd entered the program and had to kill #85,471 to prove his worth. He's never been able to get her blank, lifeless stare out of his head.]

Physical wellness will have to do for now. Depre taps his wand in between Mutuo's eyes and they open. Before the old man can move, Depre casts a full body bind and slips into the mind of Malik Abadi, the pickpocket from the East End.

Malik grins, "Don't you go running on me, old man."

Mutuo can't talk, can't move, which is the damn point, but is a little counterproductive when it comes to negotiating and shit. Malik sits down next to him, leaning on his arm, and looks at him, "Got a deal for ya, if you're willing to listen."

Malik looks Mutuo dead in the eye, pushing with legitimacy, trying to get a gauge on the situation.

[Even the most unpracticed of occlumens could, if given the opportunity, empty their minds of thought and plunge a legilimens into an empty void. More skills occlumens could redirect a legilimens into a different thought or emotion, pushing them away from the thoughts they were hunting for. But what #85,470 barrels headfirst into is-]

" _~A spell of safety here I cast. A word of might to hold us fast,~"_ a man's voice, Matthew Jacques voice chants on the outer edge of Mutuo's mind. " _~A shield before us and behind. To right and left, protection bind. To we may no harm or ill whit come. By power of three, my magic is from. With the sacred light around me. As above- So below, Blessed Be!~"_

A monster looms before Depre, a burning figure with four heads and a thousand wings and a body made entirely out of mouths and tongues. It reaches towards him, millions of voices screaming, and Depre-

He pulls his mind back, throws himself backwards, skin drenched in sweat and chest heaving. Depre feels his spell lift off of Mutuo and the old man scrambles away from him.

"Wait… wait!" Depre- Malik- he tries to get back into the persona of Malik, but he can't, he just can't- Jacques, he's protecting them all, somehow, with some _god_ -

[Control your fear. Control. Control. He feels too much. He _is_ too much. Failure. Failure. He can't fail, but he already has-]

"Listen to me!" Malik gasps, "Listen, I'm trying to help you."

"Get away from me," Mutuo growls.

"I healed you, just- just listen!" He reaches forwards, trying to grab at the old man. _Damn it. Damn it all._ _I am Malik. Malik Abadi._ "Mutiny!" Mutuo pauses, just enough to allow Malik to get another few words in, "We're planning a-"

"I don't care," Mutuo snaps and stands up, swaying a little once he gets his feet under him.

"Just let me help you!"

"I don't _care_ ," the old man says again, heading towards the door. And suddenly, Malik Abadi- Depre Scott knows what to do.

"Will you trust me if I tell the truth?" He asks, the pickpocket's persona gone. His voice is flat, his expression schooled. It's enough to shock Mutuo into turning back towards him. Depre stands up, ramrod straight, not bothering to blink.

Mutuo takes a step back, "It's been a long time since I've seen one of you."

[#85,470 believes that Mutuo is referring to the mission in Egypt twenty-five years ago, where a pair of Plants were instructed to watch Mutuo's progress as he researched the tomb of the Lady Pharaoh. #84,967 and #85,101 had never returned from that mission. Mutuo had.]

He tells Mutuo that he knows this. The old man isn't shocked by that, but he does comment on Depre's disloyalty to his masters, "Mr. Hajjar and Mr. Wasem were the Department's down to their final seconds. You… You are not."

"I am loyal," he says, because he is.

"You're planning mutiny. How can you be loyal?"

"I am loyal," he says again, as if it was obvious.

[To Pete Coppermine, who is older than him but so much younger. To Keith Howard, who tries but needs help more than anything. To Reiko Kitamori, who must have her reasons.]

[To Tilla Mook, who cared for his wounds and smiled with lines around her lips and had his back even when it would have been easier for her to not.]

[He loves her.]

[It's terrifying.]

[It's still the simplest truth he knows.]

"But not to the Department," Mutuo realizes. Depre offers a blink of acknowledgement.

[They hurt them.  
They hurt _her_.]

[They hurt **me** _._ ]

"And what would you have me do, during this mutiny?" Mutuo asks, eyes looking for betrayal.

"Exactly what you're already going to do," Depre says. "Just with a little help."

He tosses the old man the enchanted keys to the cells. Mutuo catches them, turning them over in his hands.

"I was going to escape," Mutuo tells him plainly. Depre believes him.

"You need incentive to stay. You have it."

"I do," Mutuo sighs, resigned. Then he looks up, "What's your name?"

[#85,470 has many names.]

"It's best we don't exchange that information," he says instead.

"You're right," Mutuo nods. "Beware of the man with the Millennium Eye."

"I will take that into consideration."

"Good," Mutuo says and disappears through the door, leaving Depre with the question, _What is your name?_

[#85,470 has been assigned names. His number, his covers, even Depre Scott.]

[He's only been given one.]

Jonathon hopes he's made the right choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been doing some preparation for the Ancient Egypt arc, even going as far as to write out the first two scenes. I'm also in the middle of putting in the final details of the royal family tree. I'm mentioning this because one of the characters on it (Monifa) is mentioned in this chapter and if anyone wants to know a little bit more about her or her relationships to the other characters on that family tree, you are all welcome to ask.


	7. Asset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The Mist belongs to Rick Riordan and his Percy Jackson series. Midway Atoll belongs to the state of Hawaii. Daniel K. Inouye International Airport belongs to the state of Hawaii. Golden Gate Park belongs to the City of San Francisco. Purell is owned by GOJO Industries.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of needles, childhood abandonment by a parent, past death of minor characters, child death, near starvation, weapons smuggling, pedophilia, gore, loss of control, and skin burns.

Duke doesn’t know how, but the Jackals apparently have recently gained access to a military ship.  Like, within the last three days.  He tries not to be jealous and fails  _ spectacularly _ .

“We don’t technically own it,” Cassie explains as she connects her charger to her laptop.  They’re in the guest room at Seto’s condo.  Duke is sitting cross-legged on the bed.  It’s early, the sun not yet over the horizon.  “Almeida… I mean,  _ maman _ just allowed us access.  Or at least, she might.  I’ve only been talking to her again for about a week.”

“ _ Maman? _ ” He asks, poorly imitating her immaculate French, “As in--”

“ _ Ma  _ _ mère. _  My… mother,  _ oui _ ,” she nods, sounding completely unused to saying the word, and pulls up the messenger system that the Jackals like to use.

“And why does your mother own a ship?” Duke asks hesitantly.

She turns to him and raises an eyebrow, “Because my father bought it for her.”

_ Oh, right.  Obviously, _ he rolls his eyes.  “Yeah, but how?”

Cassie’s eyes drop to her hands and suddenly he feels a wave of shame roll over him.  Clearly this isn’t something she wants to talk about.

“Sorry,” Duke says.  “You don’t have to--”

“We don’t really get along very well.  She doesn’t like the fact that I want to live with  _ papa _ and his family,” she shrugs nonchalantly.  “Or that I joined the military without letting her know-- which is really hypocritical of her, considering that she dumped him and I on a beech first chance she got.  It’s just… never mind.”

Leo comes on line just then.

**> hey babe**   
**> hows sf?** **  
**

Duke’s spoken with Leo enough to know that he’s probably not serious about the flirting.  But it’s a little different now that word has gotten around to his fellow cyclers that the Jackals are probably made up of old members of the Medjay.  He wracks his brain trying to figure out where Leo might have fit into the King Commander’s medley of lieutenants and captains, but can’t come up with anything.  He figures that, much like this lifetime, Leo could just possibly be another non-cycler just doing his best to help out in this thousand year old fight.

Cassie smiles and starts to type out her response.

> jetlag sucks but everyone is so friendly   
> dancer sends her love   
**> YOU MET DANCER WHAT THE FUUUUUUCK HOLY SHIT!!!!!1!  
** **> so jealous rn** ****  
> probs shouldn’t mention pretty boy and baby girl then  
**> asdfghjkl;  
** **> wertlgfcxjk,werthj7653456yuj,hgfmdnsdmv,bhktruehgwbsndmf,ghitruydh  
** **> DO YOU NOT LOVE ME ANYMORE??!!?!**

Duke takes a moment to enjoy this little bit of levity in between all the darkness surrounding their war plans.  He’s already made arrangements to get his parents out of the country if something were to go wrong.   _ I just need to tell them that, _ he thinks as his hands curl into fists.

> real talk tho   
> i need you to contact almeida   
> we need a hq in the pacific ocean

Leo takes a few minutes to answer that one.

**> u know she doesn’t like me** ****  
> she doesn’t like anyone   
**> tru** **  
** **> but she REALLY doesn’t like me**

“Why doesn’t she like Leo?” Duke asks, feeling so out of the loop.  

“He hacked her guidance systems last week when she refused to talk to us,” Cassie admits.

> use an alias   
> you have tons   
**> she always knows its me  
** > because you call her sugar mama   
**> ok fair  
** **> you owe me tho  
** > ty

“Leo will probably be a while,” Cassie says, leaning back in her chair and spinning it so that she faced him.  “So, what’s this plan I hear about half of us going to London?”

“We’re starting to think long term.  Besides, that’s all need-to-know.  And since you and I are heading to the island, that doesn’t include us since wizards can read minds,” Duke explains.  “Frankly, both of us already know too much as it is.”

Cassie hums her response, nodding along, “It’s just… I’ve known Strings for a while.  He’s a good kid.  I’d hate to see him hurt.”

“Seto won’t let that happen.”

“Don’t go making promise you can’t keep, ‘cause I might hold you to them,” she leans forwards, taking him in.  “God, you’re young.  How’d someone like you get caught up in all of this?”

There’s a pit lodged in Duke’s throat, “I had a sister, Lindsay.”

“ _ Merde _ ,” Cassie swears.  “Fuckers.”

“Yeah…” And now, apparently, there’s a witch living in San Francisco right now, one that’s supposedly switched sides.  It makes him sick thinking that they’re thinking of trusting her.

“They came for me during my first tour.  Tried to make it look like an accident, in case my  _ papa _ brought it up with the Prime Minister,” she admits.  “They slaughtered my squadron, but I managed to escape.  Clung to a buoy for three days before Almeida found me.”

“You’re mother’s part of the French Navy?”  Duke guesses, a little worried.  He knows that Cassie’s connected to the French government through her father, but there was no way that they could possibly get an official military to help them out without causing problems.  Cassie puts his fears to rest when she shakes her head.

“No.  She’s a very rich pirate.”

_ It’s odd how that’s a more comforting answer, _ Duke thinks.

Leo takes that moment to finally respond.

**> she’ll do it if you spend hanukkah with her this year**

“ _ Nom de dieu, vous n’êtes même pas juif,” _ Cassie buries her face in her hands.

“Family reunions must  _ suck _ for you,” Duke says.

“You have no idea,” she groans, hands reaching for the keyboard.

> tell her i’ll do it  
**> when you come home, i’m getting you soooooo drunk  
** > thanks   
> i’ll need it

“At the cost of my sanity, we have ourselves a ship,” Cassie announces.  “Leo should be sending over all the information soon.”

“Good.  Catch,” he throws a USB port at her.  “Give that to Leo.  It’s a list of some of my contacts.  Maybe we can reroute some of my shipments to your mother, so that we don’t have to move them ourselves.”

“What are you getting brought in?” Cassie asks.

“Weapons mostly.  We knew that the wizards were planning an attack on us, but we had no idea when.  I was planning to have some stuff brought in for two days from now, but they decided to come a little early,” Duke sighs.  His phone alarm goes off.  He sighs.  Usually he wouldn’t do this in front of someone else, but this was  _ Kisara. _  They’d been through enough together after the war for him to not trust her, “Hey, look.  Can… Can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” she straightens up, looking attentive.

“So… I’m trans.”

Cassie blinks in surprise, “Oh.”

“The alarm was so that I remember to take my next dose of T, so… uh, do you mind…”

“Do you want me to leave?” She asks.

“No, it’s fine.  I just need to take off my pants,” he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.  “Figured I should warn you before I started to strip.”

“Thigh injection.  Right,” she nods.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Kit’s in my bag.  You mind grabbing it for me?”

Cassie nods, heading over to his backpack as Duke wrestles his jeans off and kicks them onto the floor.

“Delatestryl?” She asks for clarification.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he says and she brings it over.  He loads his dosage into the needle, takes a deep breath, and stabs it into the meat of his upper thigh.

“How long does that last?” Cassie asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed, watching as his lowly pushes the plunger down.

“A week,” he answers.  

“Do you have a plan in case the fighting last longer than that?”

“I can take the needles with me.  I’ve got enough to get me through another two months.  If we’re there longer than that… well, there’s this gel thing I have in case of emergencies,” he winces a little as he removes the needle.  “It’s a  _ lot _ more expensive, but it’ll have to do.”

“Does it work alright?”

“Should.  Never had to use it before.  Just have to be careful not to touch anyone after applying it,” he says, remembering what his doctor had said.  “I shouldn’t have to use it anyways, only if we’re there for longer than two months.”

“Here’s hoping that won’t happen.  Hey,” Cassie grabs his jeans off the floor and hands them to him.  “Thank you for trusting me.”

He nudges her with his elbow, “Thank you for… you know…”

“No problem,” she says, resting her chin on his shoulder after he puts his pants back on.  “You been in many battles?”

“More than you’d think,” he answers, remembering all the wars he’d fought in over all his cycles.  He thinks about how often he’d seen Kisara riding off with the Medjay during her reign, off to deliver death or life, harm or help.  Deuel had always been more of a guerilla fighter to Kisara’s warrior.

“God, you’re  _ so _ young,” she whispers.

“We’re all young,” Duke sighs.  “War makes fucked up adults of us all.”

“I’ll drink to that,” she snorts, miming a toast.

“ _ Salut _ ,” he murmurs, nodding along.  “Come on, let’s get back to work.  We’re wasting daylight.”

* * *

 

Atem sees the text coming in before it pings on her phone.  Bakura, ever the light sleeper, jolts awake.

“You didn’t sleep,” he says groggily, turning over and burying his face in the collar of her shirt.

“Not used to the mattress,” she says, and it’s mostly the truth-- Bakura’s bed is pretty uncomfortable.

“You need to rest.  You were literally two different people a few days ago,” he reaches through her and grabs her phone so that she can’t.  “Besides, you already know what it says.”  His legs wrap around her waist, trapping her in bed like a human cage.  “Sleeeeeeeep,” Bakura draws the word out for four whole seconds.

“Read the text.  We’ve got to get going,” Atem says, but finds it difficult to will herself away from him.   _ He’s warm, _ she thinks.

“Fuck,” Bakura swears when he does, sounding impressed.  “They work fast.”

She hums in response and forces herself to detangle her limbs from Bakura’s body.  Atem stretches, arching her back.  Her shirt had rode up in her sleep, exposing her stomach.  When she looks back, Bakura is staring.  He offers her a smirk.

“Sorry,” he says around a toothy grin, obviously not sorry at all.  She rolls her eyes at him and sits up, tugging the shirt she’s wearing back into place.

Atem has been living with Bakura since  _ The Turtle Game Shop  _ burned to the ground, eating his food and sleeping in the same bed.  And as much as she thanks him for it, she does miss wearing her own clothes.  She tugs at her hair again as it falls into her eyes.   _ Maybe I should do something about this as well. _

She’d worn her natural hair long and proud all throughout her life, even though the style of the day was to shave it off a wear a wig.  Her mother had encouraged that she wear it long, helping her to care for it in between helping Shimon rule the country and teaching Atem how to do the same.  And when it eventually turned red after she’d taken on the mantle of King, Atem wondered if her parents had known more about what her future held than they’d let on.

“Up.  Come on,” she says as she rolls out of bed.  Bakura throws back the covers and reaches onto the floor beside him to grab his own phone.

As Atem heats up the leftovers they’d scooped from Seto’s place last night in the microwave, Bakura boots up his laptop and opens up the email Duke and Cassie had sent out a few minutes ago.

He lets out a low whistle, “My father’s an idiot.”

“Which one?” She asks, placing a steaming bowl of General Tao’s chicken in front of him.  Immediately, Bakura picks it up and starts to devour it.

“Both.  But in this moment, definitely Ryou’s,” he clarifies around his meal.  “He used to call non-magic cities ‘mudswamps’.  And yet, here they are… building these.  All this never fails to amaze me, I swear.”

He spins his laptop and lets her see the manifest of the  _ Cerulean _ .  It’s impressive.

“How in the world did the Jackals manage to get their hands on something like this?” Atem wonders out loud.

“Let alone one that they can position wherever they want.  It’s incredible,” Bakura scrapes the bottom of the bowl, trying to get as many of the scraps of his meal as he can.  Atem turns back to the microwave just as it beeps, telling her that her breakfast is ready.  He continues to read, “Full medical bay, can travel at over 30 knots, houses up to five hundred people… And Duke is saying that  _ pirates _ have this thing?”

“Apparently,” she says, using her powers to tug at the visuals on the screen so that she can see them with her back turned.  She opens the microwave and tries to touch the bowl inside, but it’s too hot.  Shaking her hand and wincing, she hunts for another fork.  Bakura’s kitchen is a mess.  “Can you guess how far off of the coastline wizarding control over the Mist can go?”

“Less than a mile.  We could shut it down entirely if we find whatever it is that’s anchoring the spell.  We’d need to be on site for that, unless you can knock it out at a distance with your powers,” Bakura says.

“I’ll take care of that then,” she nods, fingers running down her stomach to where the Puzzle lies cloaked in the Mist.   _ Only if necessary… _ she tells herself.  “So if we bring the  _ Cerulean _ to at least three miles off the coastline, that will be just over the horizon.”

Bakura pulls up the satellite images of the island, located with the help of the Jackals, “Around here?” He points to a location between the island’s coast and Midway Atoll, a small spit of land that was part of a national wildlife refuge that he immediately calls up the Wikipedia page for and scans through it.  “We should probably circle the island itself, so that people don’t guess where we are.”

Atem finally deems her food cool enough to take out of the microwave and begins to eat, “The real question is: how are we going to get all our people onto this thing?  I figure that we can all catch a flight into Honolulu and have our transformers shuttle our people to meet the  _ Cerulean _ off the coast, but that’s a lot of people we’re planning to move.  That’s a lot of tickets to buy.  Do we even have access to that kind of money?”

“I don’t know…” Bakura frowns, “That’s really something we should know.  We should get on that.”

“Gods, I know,” Atem sighs, sitting down across from him at the table.  She offers him a small smile, “It’s so different now.  At least, back then, we had some idea of what was going on.”

“Speak for yourself.  You and the King Commander, you guys had some kind of actual throne to move onto, or at least a version of it.  I had to do everything from scratch.”

And isn’t that the truth.  Bakura had absolutely no training, no official hierarchy, no court or advisors or anything to help him to acclimatize to his new found position as King once he’d been thrust into it.  The fact that he’d been able to do anything at all during the two short years that he’d ruled, let alone as much as he had, was nothing less than astounding.

“Never thought we’d end up here, though,” Bakura says and then snorts.  “Hell, never thought I’d make it past twenty some days.”

“Some of us never did,” she comments, trying to make it seem bland.  But it’s not.

Atem is eighteen years old.  Eighteen, in the same way that Bakura is twenty-one, that the King Commander had been nineteen, trapped at those ages for the rest of their lives.  They’re so, so young-- even though by the standards of their time they’d been adults for years.  She’d died a  _ child _ .

“I’m glad we made it, though,” Atem says, finishing her breakfast and reaching out to hold Bakura’s hand.  “We barely had time for  _ this _ , before.”

“Ruling is a busy business,” Bakura rolls his eyes.

“So is planning a battle,” Atem runs her free hand through her hair.  “Once the  _ Cerulean  _ is in position, we can use their--” she looks at the manifest again, “-- _ Sekhmet guard us _ , is that a…?  The fact that they have a military-grade helicopter genuinely terrifies me.”  Atem continues on, “We use those to drop your team in from above.”

“We take out any guards on sight.  Keep it as quiet as we can.  Once the electronics are back up again, you’ll land with the second wave,” Bakura zooms in on the satellite photo sent to them by the Jackals.  “East side.  It’s… pretty fortified.”

Except, Bakura looks almost  _ sick _ when he mentions it.  Atem rubs her thumb against his.  He seems to deflate, shoulders sagging, “I, um… I died there.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.  And she gets it, terribly and intimately, because the last thing in the world that she wants to do is return to Hellman Hollow.

“It’s fine,” Bakura says gruffly, but he doesn’t let go of her hand.

Touch means something to them, maybe even more than it does in other relationships.  Atem remembers the King Commander, a touch-based telepath who’d gone years without skin-to-skin contact out of respect for the privacy of others.  The level of trust that the three of them had in each other, just to  _ touch _ , was incredible.

And then there was what Bakura and her had to work through.  They should never have been allowed to touch in the first place, let alone breathe the same air as each other.  Atem had always been aware of their differences in class somewhere in the back of her head, but she knows that for Bakura, it had been terribly, horrendously blatant from the moment they’d become aware of each other’s true identities.

So she holds on, gives what comfort she can.   _ He is my equal, _ she thinks, spitting in the faces of all those who’d ever thought otherwise, herself included.   _ I love him and we are worthy of each other. _

“We’ll get inside.  Joey and Duke will lead their team to the prison levels.  Cassie and Amanda will hold the cliff and the Jackals provide our escape from above,” Bakura says, continuing to grip her hand.  “You and I… We need to go after Pegasus.  But… there’s something else.”

Atem frowns, “What?”

Bakura swallows hard, “They have the Eye and the Spellbook.”

The bottom drops out of her stomach, “What…?  Why haven’t you told anyone?”

“For the longest time, it was because I thought everyone already knew,” Bakura explains.  “And then the invasion happened and we’ve been so busy since… it’s a shitty excuse, but I literally just haven’t had the opportunity to bring it up.  But we need to go after them.  Because--”

“Divine weapons don’t work on each other, so we’re the only ones who stand a chance,” Atem’s throat tightens.  “And if what we felt the night I came back is what we think it is, then someone has certainly started using the Eye.” 

“You’re shaking,” Bakura says.

“The last time we pitted these weapons against each other, it wasn’t exactly enjoyable for anyone involved,” Atem’s voice is a little shaky.  “And if it comes to actual  _ battle-- _ ”

“We’ll be okay.  And we both know that it’s not the fighting that you’re worried about.”

Atem has to look away, unable to keep eye contact.  Bakura pushes his laptop aside and comes around the table, pulling her into his arms.

“ _ Fuck _ Aknadin,” he spits.  “Fuck him and fuck the Eye.”

“Seth used it after Aknadin.  He didn’t do too bad with it,” Atem feels obliged to point out.  “I just  _ hate _ the thing.  I hate it.  I hate what it does.  I hate everything about it.”  Rage boils in her stomach, bubbling up into her throat, “I’m going to rip it out of his pedophiliac skull and bathe it in Purell before I give it to Seth.”

Bakura takes a moment to respond, but when he goes, he says something that shocks her to her core, “I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it.”

Atem pushes her face into his neck, breathing him in.  She doesn’t say anything, fingers fisting in his shirt.  And then, the thought occurs to her, “What are we doing with Kitamori?”

She steps back and Bakura lets her go, breathing out slowly and running his hand through his white hair.  His scar shifts as he winces, “Amanda’s got control of her, but…”

“You think we should take her with us.”  It’s not a question.

“She knows the island better than me; I didn’t exactly get a lot of time to move around as either the Spirit or Ryou,” Bakura explains.  “And she’s  _ strong _ .  Maybe not enough to fight someone with a divine weapon--”

“No normal human is.  They were made to help us combat gods,” Atem interrupts.

“But she’s strong enough that I won’t be surprised if she’s able to shake Amanda’s binding spell.  And if that’s the case, we’re probably the only one’s powerful to take her down without risk,” Bakura says.

“You think she might actually betray us?”

“She’s going to betray the last of her wizarding allies eventually, so I wouldn’t put it past her,” Bakura tells her.  “It’s insurance, if nothing else.”

“We need to move out tomorrow, no later,” Atem says.  “There’s a few things I want to do before we leave.”

“Like what?”

She motions towards her hair and tugs at her--  _ his _ shirt, “I really could do with a change.”

* * *

 

Tea Gardner, Amanda Green’s girlfriend, sits at the kitchen table, typing away on her laptop.  From what Reiko understands, she’s trying to buy hundreds of muggle-- no,  _ non-magic _ dollars worth of airplane tickets.  Reiko is slightly concerned about the fact that she’s might have to board one of these things, because there’s no way that the mages are going to let her apparate to Hawaii, even with Green’s control over her.

“I mean, the Jackals are lending us the money because Leo is apparently loaded,” Gardner explains when Green asks how she’s doing.  “It’s just there aren’t enough seats available on such short notice.  There’s no way we could land one of the Jackal’s helicopters locally without raising some eyebrows from the  _ actual _ military, considering the weapons payload on them.”  She runs her hands frustratedly through her short brown hair.

“What are the chances that we could just, I don’t know,  _ buy _ a plane?” Green suggests.

“That would be simpler, wouldn’t it?” Gardner sighs.

“So?” Green moves in close, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend and pressing a kiss into her hair.  Gardner smiles ruefully.

“Anyone who’s willing to sell us a plane on this level of short notice is going to sell us crap,” she says.  “And I’m sure that we’d like to, you know,  _ not _ drop out of the sky thirty minutes into the flight.”

“If you can get us a plane, I’ll make some deals upstairs after I finish up talking to Monthu.  Maybe get us a blessing or two.  Seshat has always liked me,” Green smiles.  Reiko’s eyes widen.

She’s known, theoretically, that Green had the ability to channel gods into her body, but the idea that she might be able to witness it is both terrifying and incredible all in one.   _ Should I be here, if she’s going to do something like that?  Would be being a witch hurt her chances? _

But even as Reiko weighs the pros and cons, she can’t help but wonder:  _ how _ could Green connect with the gods with them, at best, sealed within the divine realms, or at worst, dead?

Gardner leans back into her hold, “Seshat?  Not Thoth?  I thought he was all about math and building and stuff?  You know, an engineer like you?”

“He is, but he’s kind of stuck up.”

Reiko lets out a low, exasperated laugh, because of course Amanda Green would think that about a  _ god _ .

Gardner gets someone named Duke on the phone and starts talking about where they could buy a passenger jet on short notice.  Green moves off to the side and starts rifling through her fridge for… herbs?

_ Oh _ .  Reiko realizes that Green is about to start casting some kind of spell.  She looks around the room, feeling awkward.

“Do you want me to leave?” She asks and Green jumps.

“Oh my god, you’re so quiet!  I almost forgot you were there!” Green gasps.

Gardner scoffs, “I didn’t.”

“Well good for you!” Green sasses her back, “Excuse me while I restart my heart.”

Gardner just rolls her eyes.

“Do you want me to leave?” Reiko asks again, fingering the rope around her wrist.  It binds her to Green’s will, but she’s willing to bet that she could break it if given the opportunity to study it.  Except, one of Green’s first orders was that she couldn’t do exactly that, so that’s not going to happen.  For now, at least.

Green pauses to think it over, “No.  I mean, it’s best not to lie to the gods.  Hiding you would just piss them off.  If Monthu doesn’t want to bless our campaign, then I’ll find someone else.”

“You… can do that?”

Green shrugs, “One of the advantages of what Emeric and Helga Hufflepuff did at Camelot is that those in the divine realms don’t get to be picky about who they help anymore.”

Reiko keeps her expression schooled and doesn’t say anything that might make Green question her about that.  She’s knows too much about why Hufflepuff and her husband did what they did and even though these mages are her allies now, there’s no guarantee that they’ll continue to be afterwards.  She might tell them later, if it’s necessary, but for now… no.

Besides, she doubts that the mages are telling her everything about them as well.  Reiko thinks about Atem and Bakura, the two strange looking mages who were apparently in charge.  There’s something about them and she can’t put her finger on it, but it’s almost  _ familiar _ .  Not to mention that they’ve seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

And then there’s Atem’s strange comment about people living in the city being over a hundred years old.  At first, Reiko had thought that the girl had been talking about people like Green, who somehow remembered their previous incarnations.  But now she’s not so sure.

She thinks about Helena, about what the Head had considered to be her part in the Department’s grand plan, and refuses to react.

“Monthu?  That’s--” Reiko wishes that she’d brought her notebook, the one with all the Ancient Egyptian gods in it, with her.  It’d be really nice to reference right now, “--He’s a sun god, isn’t he?  From Ancient Egypt.”

Green hums in acknowledgement, “He’s also a war god.  And he likes Mokuba, so I really doubt he’ll turn me down.”

“Mokuba… Liang?  Seto Chen’s half-brother?” Reiko just feels lost.   _ Why would a sun god like  _ him _? _

Green pulls a peppery-smelling bundle of herbs from her fridge and starts to rummage through a drawer in her kitchen, grabbing a white candle.  She lays her finds on the counter and opens a cupboard door, revealing several bottles of what looks like oil.

“Just to let you know, if you ever run into either of the Kaiba brothers, don’t  _ ever  _ comment on the fact that they’re half brothers,” Green warns as she pulls down one labeled  _ Road Be Clear _ .

“Why?”

“Because it’s  _ rude _ ,” Gardner says before going back to her phone call.

“Because they don’t like it,” Green says, a little kinder.  She grabs a pack of matches and her wallet, tucking her ingredients under arm and moves to sit down on the floor of her living room in front of a small altar.

Reiko kind of wants to get in closer, just to watch something that few wizards have ever had the opportunity to witness.  Green seems to notice and smiles, motioning for her to join her on the floor.  Reiko fights down a blush - Amanda Green is still startlingly, unfairly attractive - and kneels down next to her.

“You’ve never seen a Spellcaster work before, have you?” Green asks and Reiko shakes her head, “Well, first time for everything.  Can you grab a piece of paper from the coffee table over there?  And a pen?  There should also be some incense in the drawer there.  Grab a stick from the box labeled  _ Fir _ , okay?”

Reiko does what she’s told, regardless of the fact that she doesn’t really have much of a choice.  She hands Green the incense and the paper, noticing the bright green colour that the girl has painted her nails with, sees the golden lines on her thumbs that look like fireworks.  Reiko’s never had her nails painted before.  She thinks that if she ever did, she’d want them to be red.

Green scribbles some words down on the paper, sets the candles into holders onto the altar, and pulls a twenty dollar bill from her wallet.  She places the herbs on the table and starts to mutter.

“ _ ~Open my mind, open my heart, to all the strength that lies within.  Do not let fear halt my quest.  Do not let doubt cloud my mind.  I have the power to bring about change.  I have the ability to possess all I desire.  Steady my hand.  Strengthen my resolve.  Allow what I now begin to reach its natural conclusion.  I ask the power of Monthu, War God of Thebes, the Swooping Falcon, and Lord of Djerit.  Remove all obstacles to my goal.  Make my dream reality.  Make my wish come true.~ _ ”

She holds one of the incense sticks in front of her, eyes closed in prayer.  Reiko watches as the tip begins to glow ember hot, smoke wafting into the air and filling the room with a earthy pine scent.  Green gently places the stick into a cone conveniently located on the altar before anointing one of the candles with oil from the jar.

“ _ ~I call to Monthu, He Who Kills The Enemies Of Ra, for wisdom and guidance.  Look favourably upon my request as I light this candle.  My intentions are not entirely selfish.  I ask only for a good and happy life.  I have tried all other avenues and feel the only way to achieve this is by asking for your assistance in attaining my goal.  May my request be granted.  May all good things come to pass.~ _ ”

“This is an Ancient Egyptian spell casting method,” Reiko comments as Green rubs oil into the pieces of paper from before.  “You favour these gods in general.”

Green hums again and drops the paper onto a dish on the altar table, “They’ve been with me all my lives.”

“Mala Pukar was from India.  The high priestess that wielded the staff you took from the Archives was Aztec.  Where did you learn to follow Ancient Egyptian rituals?” Reiko watches as she wraps the twenty dollar bill around the stems of the herbs - black pepper plants, Reiko notes, able to tell what they are now that she’s up close.  Green places the bundle in front of a quartz crystal on the altar.  Reiko straightens, her mind catching up, “Just… how long have you been cycling?”

“A very, very long time,” Green sighs, then laughs.  “The staff was from when I was called Mazatl.  I made it in the hopes that I could break through the seal and start to speak with the gods again.  It works a bit too well these days.  I almost can’t handle it anymore.”

“You lost control in the Archives,” Reiko realizes.

Green nods, “Good thing Sekhmet can be controlled with wine.  Bakura got her to drink it.  Do you mind if I continue my spell, though?”

Reiko nods and Green begins to chant again.

“ _ ~Ill will surrounds my friends and I, causing pain and hardship.  Make the evil forces dissipate and scatter.  Turn the bad to good.  Make the difficult easy.  Help remove the blocks which have been set in our paths, so we may bring our people home.~ _ ”

She picks up the oils paper, saying the words she’d written down, “ _ ~As this paper burns, protect all those that I love.~ _ ”, and lights it using the candle flame.  She drops the burning paper back into the dish.  Then she moves to one of the book shelves lining the walls and picks up a framed photograph that seems to change the picture every ten seconds.  Reiko recognizes some of the faces - Matthew Jacques, Tea Gardner, the Kaiba brothers, Bakura, Yuugi Mutuo and then a group photo of thousands of bodies sitting on a hillside - but others she doesn’t.  Green carefully places the frame on the altar next to the dish, touching the faces of her friends gently.

“ _ ~Now my spell begins.  May my magic find its mark.~ _ ”

The candles and incense go up in flames, burning down to their bases at an alarming rate.

“ _ ~My spell has been cast.  May nothing stop its course.~ _ ”

_ Mazatl the Aztec, Mala Pukar, Amanda Green, _ Reiko thinks, then remembers the names her research had uncovered after she’d put together that someone had been using Mala Pukar’s abilities a hundred years after her death.  Now she just needs confirmation.

Green says the last few words of her spell, “ _ ~My spell is now complete.  May the result be all I desire.~ _ ”

“Manika Lapa, the girl from Latvia .  Manerva from Gual.  Mummu of Babylon,” Reiko says bluntly and watches as Green’s shoulders stiffen.  “I can go on if you want.  Your sequence is easily trackable, if you know what you’re looking for.”

“What of it?” Green asks, her voice low and dangerous.

“Names have power, power that connects right down into our souls.  And the letter ‘M’ is far too common in your names to not be a coincidence,” Reiko barrels forwards.

“What. of. it? “ Green asks again.  Sand seems to collect around her arms and Reiko knows that she can’t do anything to stop it, not while Green has her bound.  But then again, Green could just order her silence, which she hasn’t done yet, so Reiko thinks that the Spellcaster might actually be interested in her answer.

“You use Ancient Egyptian methods to cast your spells.  You said that a ‘nuclear bomb of magic’ helps you remember your previous incarnations,” Reiko pauses for dramatic effect.  “You’re High Priestess Mana, aren’t you?”

Gardner thinks she’s sneaky, but she really isn’t.  Reiko ducks below the baseball bat the girl swings at her head, spinning around to face her, and disarms her in a flash.  She’s about to strike back when she hears Green-- except,  _ that’s not Green at all _ , whisper,  **“Stop moving.”**

Reiko freezes in place as the robe binds her in place, unable to twitch.  The baseball bat clangs at it hits the floor and Gardner backs up frantically, eyes wide and staring over Reiko’s shoulder.  She drops to her knees, head down in submission.

Reiko Kitamori knows what’s behind her and she is terrified.

**“Little witch,”** Sekhmet addresses her, her breath boiling hot as it rolls over Reiko’s skin, making it bubble, red and raw.  The goddess’s voice would cripple her had she not been ordered to stay still.   **“You are playing with forces you cannot hope to understand…”**

Reiko couldn’t respond even if she wanted to.  Sand coils around her neck and squeeze ever so gently.  She’s reminded suddenly of when Atem forced her against a wall, choking her with a single hand, of Helena after the rare times Reiko had failed in her duty.

**“I would burn your heart and eat it.  I would gorge on your blood and feast on your smoldering flesh.  I would make you answer for the crimes of those who murdered me,”** Sekhmet threatens.   **“But I will not.”**

Reiko sees the goddess grinning out of the corner of her eye, her cruel grin dripping red between her razor teeth.

**“Do you want to know why, little witch?”** Sekhmet asks and Reiko finds her tongue.

“Yes,” she answers and she doesn’t know if she’s lying or not.

**“Because I see the battles your will cause, the blood you will spill.  I see the hunter you are,”** Sekhmet voice sounds like a war.   **“Look at me, girl.”**

Reiko’s head turns and her body shakes as she stands before the goddess.  Sekhmet is eight feet tall, her body a mass of twisting golden sand.  Her eyes are glowing amethysts, imbedded in a head shaped like a lioness.  There’s a sash around her waist, soaked red in the blood that flows down her inner thighs.

_ She’s beautiful, _ Reiko thinks.   _ She’s horrifying. _

Sekhmet laughs, throwing her head back and splashing the ceiling with blood.  Her bare chest heaves with her mirth, her back arched in ecstasy.  Then, suddenly, the goddess looms over her and presses her forehead against Reiko’s, forcing her to stare into the gemstones that form her eyes.

Reiko can’t move.  The goddess wraps taloned claws around her arms, holding her in place.  Sand and heat and wind fill Amanda Green’s apartment.   _ I’m going to die. _

**“Seth is laughing at us, little witch,”** Sekhmet grins, her mouth wide enough to swallow Reiko whole.   **“It would figure that my chosen would be born amongst my enemies.”**

“ _ What? _ ” Reiko whispers.

The goddess doesn’t answer, just swoops down and presses a bloody kiss to Reiko’s mouth.  When she pulls away, the goddess whispers,  **“Mine,”** once more before the sand collapses around Green’s body and the temperature in the room drops nearly a hundred degrees.

“Amanda!” Gardner lurches forwards, pushing past Reiko and throwing her arms around her girlfriends, whispering softly to her.  Green nods slowly, almost drunkenly, before fixing her eyes on Reiko.

“You’ve been blessed,” she states.  She smiles ruefully, “I’m sorry.”

“Have you…?  Are you… ‘blessed’, as well?” Reiko asks, shaken to her core.   _ A goddess of slaughter just called me  _ hers _. _

“No.  Gods just like me,” Green says as Gardner helps her to her feet.  “But my sister was.”

_ Sister?  Oh Merlin, _ Reiko’s heart hammers in her chest.   _ She’s talking about the Lady Pharaoh _ .

“What happened to her?” Reiko asks finally.

“She died,” Green states.  “She died and she took almost all of our family with her.”  And then, oddly enough, Green chuckles and the laughter of Sekhmet echoes around her room.  “But then again, my family doesn’t make a habit of staying dead.  Get some sleep, okay?  We ship out tomorrow.”

And as she watches Gardner carry Green into her bedroom, Reiko Kitamori realizes that she is probably in over her head with these people.


	8. Intersection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valon died in a car bombing in Iraq the day that the Department came for her. Rafael and Alister, her childhood friends, helped her fend them off, helped her grab Haley and run west with nothing but the clothes on their backs, rent unpaid and breakfast still on the table.
> 
> She didn’t dare call her parents for six months, terrified that something would happen if she did. So there Mai had been, standing at a payphone on a dusty street in Holbrook, Arizona, her baby strapped to her back and Alister’s hand clutching her’s like a lifeline, when her mother told her about Valon.
> 
> Her memories came flooding back and she hasn’t been the same since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): Travis & Emery Music is located at 17 Cecil Ct, London, UK. Watkin’s Books is located at 19-21 Cecil Ct, London, UK.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of gore, non-consensual body modification, rape, child abuse, potential homelessness, past minor character death, bombings, home invasion, and unintentional misgendering of a closeted character.

After Solomon leaves him for dead in the cage, Mokuba is hauled up and thrown into a cell with Matthew, who hasn’t stopped muttering the spell for the Shield of Azriel since the moment they were captured.  The Spellcaster doesn’t even react when Mokuba is literally tossed inside and he doesn’t expect him to.  Matthew is far too into his prayer to notice the world around him. 

Mokuba plays dead on the ground, hoping that the wizards will make a comment.  He’s rewarded for his silence when the huge redheaded monster behind him says, “Why aren’t the Cuffs working on him?  Can’t they make him stop?”

Mokuba pushes himself up on trembling arms and turns his head just enough to see-- but not enough to see… he doesn’t want to think about it-- the dainty witch beside him shake her head, “Spellcasters… They’re in a league all their own.  They’ve managed to prevent him from doing much else, but no one can even touch him.”

He can see why.  Matthew sits cross legged in the middle of the cell, his eyes closed and his head bowed.  Tendrils of golden light steam off of his body, blurring him from sight.  The Spellcaster mutters darkly under his breath in a language that Mokuba doesn’t know - he’d guess some ancient druidic language, given Matthew’s past cycles.

_ It’s odd, _ he thinks to himself around the pain.   _ I don’t doubt he’s telling the truth, but it’s hard to think that he was Morgause, back during the reign of King Arthur. _

The doors clang shut and the wizards outside seal it shut with the wave of their wands.  Mokuba waits for them to round the counter before he lets himself fall to the ground again, trying not look back at the cause of his agony.

_ My leg.  Oh god, my leg. _

Matthew was chanting the Shield of Azrael, calling upon the Angel of Death himself to protect the minds and souls of all those that had been captured.  Whatever mindreading abilities the wizards showed them only the terrible angel made up entirely of mouths and wings and the death rattles of all living beings as their lives came to an end  If the wizards stayed too long, Azrael would claim them for himself, as Mokuba’s original captor had learned.

He shudders at the memory, remembering the feeling of Matthew’s magic fueling the great creature as it reached forwards in Mokuba’s mind and stolen the wizard’s life from him with a single swipe of his screaming hands.

But the Shield could only protect against mental or spiritual attacks, not physical.  And with Mokuba as their guinea pig, his captors had taken to experimenting on whether his own pain could convince him to tell them what they wanted to know out of his own volition.

Matthew Jacques had kept chanting.  And Mokuba’s left leg had been removed at the knee.

_ At least they cauterized it,  _ he thinks as he tries to flex a foot that’s no longer there.   _ I didn’t bleed out.  I didn’t break.  I told them nothing. _

He tells himself this as he starts to cry.  It hurts.  It  _ hurts _ so much.

“I don’t want to die.  Please, god, I don’t want to die,” he whispers into the floor.  “Someone… someone help me…”  He curls up onto a ball and weeps.  “Anyone… please... Seto...”

Seto, god, he hopes Seto’s still alive.  Mokuba wants to think that he’d just  _ know _ if his brother was dead, but it doesn’t work like that.  He lets out a horrible, wrenching scream and--

“Hello?”  A voice calls out, “Oh, god, are you okay?  Hello?!”

There are more voices, more people calling out and Mokuba barely recognizes any, but he responds anyways, shouting out his name in hopes that someone he knows can comfort him.

“Mokuba?  Mokuba, is that you?” And it’s--

“Weevil?” 

“Yes!  Yes, it’s me!”

“Mokuba?” Calls out a different voice and it’s Maria from school.  She’d just gotten married and her husband must be so, so worried about her, her little boy must be crying for her mother.  

Maria is talking again, “Hey, hey, Mokuba.  Are you okay?  Did they hurt you?”

_ Yes _ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t because he doesn’t want to scare her.  He doesn’t want to scare himself.  So instead, he says, “Been… been better.  A-are you…?”

Maria doesn’t answer, but Weevil does, “Fuckers took her.  Mokuba, her clothes are all torn up--”

“Weevil, don’t-- I don’t want to talk about--”

“Maria, fuck, shit, are you alright?!” Mokuba crawls towards the wall where her voice is coming from.  Behind him, Matthew continues to chant.

“I’ve… been better, too,” she whispers, sounding ancient and tired.  He wants to kill them all.

He makes it to the wall, propping himself up against it, breathing heavily.  He’s so exhausted.  He just wants to fall asleep and never wake up.

There’s some clanging coming from the direction of the cell block doors, but he toons it out.  Instead, Mokuba focuses on getting Weevil to describe how he and the other two kids had escaped the first time.  Maybe, just maybe, they could use that information to their advantage.

But in the process, Mokuba learns about the brief moment that Weevil had with Bakura  _ before he became Bakura _ .

Logically, he knows about the existence of Ryou Andrews.  Bakura says that he doesn’t mind talking about the boy he once was, but he always does so in this stiff, off-putting manner that makes you want to drop the subject because you can literally taste the anxiety radiating off of the Thief King’s skin.

So to hear Weevil speak about how Ryou Andrews had been this haunted, stick-thin boy who’d been so broken by the wizarding world he’d been forced to live in is… astounding.  Horrific, awful, and utterly sickening, but astounding nonetheless.

Mokuba allows himself to close his eyes, mind flitting in and out of consciousness as listens to Weevil speaking and the soft chanting of Matthew in the background.  He thinks that he actually dozes off at one point, because he dreams of a past cycle from the early days of the Roman Empire.

He’d been named Manius back then, alone in his cycle for the first time in centuries, and he’d been young and willful and too stupid to realize what the consequences of his actions might be.

_ I did this.  I helped create wizards. _

He’s never told Seto, never told  _ anyone _ , and is determined to keep it that way.  But how could he have known that warning his cousins of the true dangers that might befall him in the newly conquered province of Aegyptus?  How could he have known that Ignotus and his brothers would twist what he’d told them and use it to force magic out of the soul and into the blood and flesh and bone of man?

Manius can’t deny it, though.  It was his words that inspired the Peverells to create three new divine weapons that would help Rome carve out a magical dynasty that, in a thousand years, would reshape the world with war and death and slaughter.

Mokuba wakes up with a start, unsure of what it is that causes him to jolt.  He tries to stand, but forgets all too late, that he’s missing his left leg.  Pain jolts up his spine, making him cry out in shock, as he puts pressure on the burnt stump.  The black, pus-filled scabs crack and start to bleed.

“Shit, fuck, oh god--” he swears, frantically trying to apply pressure to the wound to stop the red from flowing.   _ I should have just told them what they wanted to know.  Seto would understand, if I did.  Bakura wouldn’t blamed me.  Atem-- _

Atem.

Mokuba doesn’t know how he knows that Doctor Mutuo is dead, but he does.  He suspects that it has something to do with Solomon knowing about the Lady Pharaoh.  And if the old man really is his grandfather from all those years ago, then there’s a high probability that he’d be related to Atem’s modern-day incarnation.  And if he remembered his cousin’s name, then that meant that she was alive again.

At the cost of Doctor Mutuo’s life.  It seems so stupid now, to think  _ I liked her _ and  _ I never told her _ because the Doctor have barely known Mokuba, hardly see him outside of class and a single meeting where he’d learned of her knowledge of mages.  But she’d always been kind to him, always smiled when she saw him, and she’d been so pretty and so smart and so utterly out of his league, that he couldn’t have helped but fallen hard. And now she was dead.

He can’t even hate Atem for that, because god only knows how badly San Francisco needed it’s Pharaoh, how badly he missed his cousin.

Mokuba just wants out, just wants to go home.  He wants his  _ mom _ , who’s been dead since he was nine years old, crushed to death with his father in a crash of screeching metal and flashing headlights.  

He’s twenty years old.  He shouldn’t be here, crying and dying and missing a limb.  He should be at school, studying and going to parties and kissing anyone who wanted to kiss him.  He wants to get drunk again, actually smoke a joint, maybe even lose his virginity.  He just wants to be  _ normal _ .

But he can’t.  Because Monthu cycles.  He remembers.  And he’s so goddamn fucking  _ angry _ about it.

Then, something impossible happens.  A figure approaches the door.  It’s Solomon Mutuo.  And he has keys.

* * *

 

The driver makes a right-hand turn on to the M4 and goes into what, back home, would have been the opposing lane of traffic.  Mai tries not to have a heart attack. 

“Christ,” she whispers under her breath anyways.  From behind the wheel, Catherine, one of the Jackal’s British contacts, laughs at her.

“Americans,” Catherine says with mirth in her voice, making eye contact with Strings in the rear view mirror.  He signs something and it causes Catherine to snort, the scars on the left side of her face stretching and contracting in a way that looks a little painful.

“What?” Seto questions, who’d silently called shotgun and glared at anyone who might challenge him.  

“Strings learned to drive at twelve.  In the desert.  He’s wondering how you’d react to him behind the wheel,” Catherine explains.  Except--

The bottom drops out of Mai’s stomach and dread fills her lungs.  Catherine Arkana is lying.

About what, she doesn’t exactly know, but somewhere in those few sentences, Catherine hadn’t told the truth.  It’s terrifying.  She wants to signal Seto in some way, but doesn’t know if she can without being noticed.

So Mai waits and rejoins the conversation, trying to rationalize it all.

Catherine chats away in the driver’s seat, telling them about how she’d come into contact with the Jackals years ago.  Her fiance had been a stage magician, using his mage craft to perform tricks in Madrid, teleporting her around the stage and leaving his audiences to wonder how he did it.

“The Department had come for him in the past, but he was always able to escape.  We’d thought that he’d be safe in Madrid, most mages were at the time.  Until… well, until the wizards decided that we weren’t allowed to be safe anywhere anymore.”

It’s around that time that Mai realizes that Catherine left arm is a prosthetic.

“My fiance was killed trying to protect me.  Cassie got me and the others out, but it was too late for him,” Catherine says stoically.  “I moved back home afterwards, and I’ve been keeping an eye out for wizarding activity here ever since.”

Mai gets a text from Raf, who’s in Philadelphia under Seto’s orders to break into the Archives again with Vivian Wong, just after they pass through Chiswick.  He’s just gotten off the phone with Alister, who’s taking care of Haley while the two of them are overseas.  Raf sends her a picture that his boyfriend had sent her, and Mai tries to keep the tears out of her eyes when she sees Alister and Haley smoothing their faces together to fit in the screen, tongues out and eyes wide.

_ I love you, baby _ , she thinks, softly and desperately.   _ I love you so much. _

Mai tries not to think about Valon, her husband and Haley’s father, a man who’d been dead for years.  She tries so, so hard not to think about the last time she’d seen him, he’d been dressed in his army uniform, standing in the doorway of their crappy shoebox of an apartment, kissing her softly before heading to the airport.

_ I should have gone with him _ , she thinks.   _ I should have taken the day off work, but we needed to make rent that month and Haley-- Haley was too young to understand why her daddy was going away… _

Valon died in a car bombing in Iraq the day that the Department came for her.  Rafael and Alister, her childhood friends, helped her fend them off, helped her grab Haley and run west with nothing but the clothes on their backs, rent unpaid and breakfast still on the table.

She didn’t dare call her parents for six months, terrified that something would happen if she did.  So there Mai had been, standing at a payphone on a dusty street in Holbrook, Arizona, her baby strapped to her back and Alister’s hand clutching her’s like a lifeline, when her mother told her about Valon.

Her memories came flooding back and she hasn’t been the same since.

Haley doesn’t remember her father.  She knows that Joey isn’t her dad, but when Mai asked her about Valon, Haley looked at her blankly, saying nothing at all.  Mai thinks about the photo that she and Valon had taken on prom night, all those years ago, how she’d hadn’t had the opportunity to take it with her when they fled Austin.

She doesn’t want to be a ghost to her daughter, someone that Alister brings up once in a blue moon only to have Haley stare silently at him, Mai’s face only a blurry memory.  She’s not going to die here.

“Leo’s turned his wizard hunting satellite on London a couple of days ago and discovered what looks to be a forked street that’s not on the maps,” Cassie explains, pulling Mai from her thoughts.  “Our spies think that the entrance to the street is a pub hidden beneath the Mist.”  She passes Seto a grainy photograph of a pair of shops.  “It’s between Travis & Emery Music and Watkin’s Books, just off Charing Cross Road.”

“ _ The Leaky Cauldron _ ...” Mai murmurs after Seto passes the photo back to her.  It looked tiny and grubby looking, not like her  _ Nomad _ at all.

“Strings is going to make it so we can pass through the pub undetected,” Catherine nods towards the boy sitting next to Mai.  “Once we get in, though, it’s all up to you guys to get the goblins talking to us.”

“That shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Serenity says from where she’s seated on the other side of Strings.

“Okay, good.  Because frankly, just getting us onto the street is going to be the hard part.”

They leave the car in a lot about five minutes away from Charing Cross Road and walk the rest of the way.  Mai takes Serenity’s elbow, letting her walk along beside her with her cane moving back and forth.  The entrance to  _ The Leaky Cauldron _ looks exactly like it does in the picture Catherine gave them: small, rundown, and vaguely blurry, in the way that all things hidden behind a forced Mist shield seemed to be.  Strings touches the walls softly with the tips of his fingers, a sad look in his eyes.

As he signs rapidly, Catherine translates, “‘Whatever spell they have to hide this place from non-magic’s, it’s wrong.  It hurts just looking at it.’”  She places a hand on his shoulder, speaking directly to the boy, “I know.  But we’re here to do a job.  Come on.”

Strings nods solemnly and twists his hands in a sharp motion.  Mai suddenly feels like she’s standing in the middle of a warm, summer sun shower, the water flowing over her skin until she suddenly couldn’t see it anymore.  When she looks up, she has to squint and blink her eyes rapidly before the blurry shapes of her comrades came into her view.

Catherine is translating for Strings again, “‘We can see each other, but they can’t see us.  It should keep us hidden for a while.’”

Seto nods, “Alright.  Let’s get going.”

The inside of the pub as damp and dark as it’s entrance suggests.  There was an old man behind the bar, bald and wrinkled, pouring glasses of sherry for a couple of women in tall pointed witch hats.  A tiny man in a bright green top hat sat at a table, giggling into a newspaper.  In a corner, a man covered in thick hair who had to have been half giant was drinking ale from what looked to be a wooden bucket.  When he laughed, it was so loud that it seemed to echo around the entire room.

Mai has never felt so cold in her entire life.   _ Witches.  Wizards.  All of them.  We’re completely surrounded. _  If Strings’ protections didn’t hold up, then they’d all be dead.

It doesn’t take too long to find out how to access the wizarding street.  Two men with thick German accents come down the stairs and asked loudly what the passcode was.

“Three up, two across,” the barman said without looking up from the counter he was scrubbing with a rag so dirty that Mai thinks it would give a health inspector an aneurysm.  Their group silently follows the pair of men out into a small, walled courtyard that contained nothing more than a dustbin and a couple of weeds.

“Ooops!  Oh… sorry, sorry!” A voice from behind and Mai has to yank Serenity out of the way before the young girl that barrels into the courtyard knocks into her.

The girl is young, eleven or twelve years old, with long black hair and dark brown eyes, her facial features showing Japanese accessory.  She’s wearing a yellow velvet dress that would look to be right out of a Renaissance fair if it weren’t covered in soot.  Mai’s blood turns to ice when the girl pulls out a wand.

“Sorry,” she says again and marches towards the wall, tapping a brick that is three up and two across from the dustbin with her wand.  She seems out of breath.  “I have to… before my father notices I’m gone…”

The brick she touched wriggled and a small hole appeared in the middle, steadily growing larger and larger until it formed an archway that lead onto a cobblestone street that twisted and turned out of sight.

The girl waited until the hole was large enough before jumping through and racing up the street.

Mai looks at Seto, who raises an eyebrow and shrugs.  They start moving right after the two German men pass through the arch and walk out into what Mai would describe as a strip mall from the 1600s.

“ _ Winkelgasse _ ,” the man on the right says before pointing towards a shop labeled ‘Apothecary’, heading towards the door.

“We’re looking for a place called Gringotts,” Seto says.  “It’s a bank, and it should be--”

“That massive white building right over there?” Mai interrupts, pointing towards the far side of the street, where the building that caught her attention towers over the rest of the shops.

Seto blinks, “Well… yes.  That one.”

The five of them weave through the crowd towards the bank.  As they walk up the stairs towards the bronze doors, Mai spots a goblin guarding the door.  Before she can say anything, Seto approaches him and, still invisible, kneels down in front of him.

What Seto says to the guard isn’t anything that Mai can understand, but it causes him to jolt at his station and then smirk widely with a mouth full of pointed teeth.  The two of them speak softly to each other for several minutes before Seto rises and comes back.

“We can go in.  Srags recommends that we wait until someone else opens the doors, so that we don’t arise suspicion,” he says.

To Mai’s utter surprise, it’s the little girl from the courtyard that opens the gates, barging up the stairs and into the bank.  The five of them slip in behind her, just before the doors close, and Seto sends what Mai assumes is a ‘Thank you’ in a language she can’t understand.

The girl ignores the queue entirely, pushing through squawking witches and wizards until she reaches the front desk.

“Is Nurnok in?” The girl practically shouts at the goblin behind the counter, “I’m Amane.  Amane Andrews.  She took me down to my vault a few days ago.”

“Ms. Andrews, if you would please rejoin the line--”

“You don’t understand, my dad knows I’m here!  I need to talk to her about--”

“Amane.”

Mai turns and sees a man in the entrance way, covered in soot and looking utterly livid.  He stalks forwards and the girl looks terrified, practically crawling onto the front desk to get away from the man she assumes is her father--

Seto is tense beside her, shaking, his face pale with… fear?  Anger?  She can’t tell.  But she knows just enough about Seto Kaiba’s childhood to know that this situation is intimately familiar to him.

The girl is dragged towards the doors, kicking and screaming, while everyone else looks at their feet and does nothing.  Mai knows logically that this girl is a witch, that she’s everything that Mai stands against, except…

Except, this is a  _ child _ , one that’s scared witless of her father, and Mai can’t help but act.

Mai Valentine is a mage with several powers.  She has the ability to transform into a harpy, her arms turning to feathers and her feet sporting talons nearly four inches long.  On top of that, she has the ability to tell if someone is lying (and she still hasn’t forgotten about Catherine’s lie earlier today, she’s just buying her time).  But finally, Mai can manipulate the wavelength of her voice, using it to do anything from silently whistling at a dog to shattering glass.  She knows enough that low-frequency sounds can cause inexplicable fear in some humans.

She does this now, projecting the waves towards the ears of the girl’s father at a wavelength so low that Andrews stops in the middle of the floor, the blood visibly draining from his face.  The girl uses this opportunity to bolt, her wand sending out red sparks that catch on her father’s sleeve, setting it ablaze.  She leaps over the front desk and behind one of the doors while Srags the guard goblin comes in from the outside and helps Andrews put out the flames.

“Get away from me, you filthy creature!” Andrews sneers, pointing his wand threateningly at Srags.  Srags raises his hands in surrender, backing away slowly.  There’s a smirk on the goblin’s face.  “Where is my daughter?”

“We seem to have lost track of her,” Srags shrugs.  “If you would please wait here, we can--”

“I want her here now!”

“We will send someone to find her, I promise.  Now, if you please, you are making a scene, sir.  Come with me and we will sort this all out.”

As Andrews is carted off, a second goblin slides up to Seto, murmuring under his voice, “This way, please.”

They follow the goblin behind the front desk and into the hallways beyond.  Once the main foyer is out of sight, the goblin turns to them and asks in English, “If you do not mind, could you drop the Disillusionment charm-- or whatever your equivalent is.  It’s making our staff uncomfortable to hide you.”

Seto nods towards Strings and Mai experiences the strange warm rain feeling again as she and the others come back into view.

Seto says something again in the language that Mai can’t understand, but the goblin stops him, “Please, sir.  I appreciate that you are trying to speak Gobbledegook-- most wizard would not even try, but…” the goblin chuckles, “...you’re not very good.”

Thankfully, Seto handles this well enough, “I only started learning it a few days ago.”

“A few days…?” The goblin raises his eyebrows, but says nothing else about it.  Instead he asks if they will follow him.

The goblin leads them down a series of hallways, ones that have a slight downhill slant, before finally ending at a plain wooden door.  Their guide knocks twice and a voice calls, “Who is it?"

“Kuirmet.  We have guests.”

“Send them in.”

Inside there is a single wooden desk, as plain as the door, behind which a small beardless goblin sits in a chair.

“Do our guests have names?” The goblin asks.

“I am Seto Kaiba, once Pharaoh Seth, successor to the Lady Pharaoh,” Seto says.  “With me is Mai Valentine, Serenity Wheeler, Catherine Arkana, and Strings… I don’t actually know your name.”  He looks towards the boy.

Strings signs quickly and Catherine translates, “‘I’ve abandoned my former name.  Strings is what I am called now.’”

“So Strings it is,” the goblin behind the desk smiles before focusing on Seto.  “The great Pharaoh Seth, born again.  It is an honour.  You may remember my ancestor, Lurtet”

“Lurtet…?” Seto frowns, before his eyes widen in surprise.  “You mean--”

“King Lurtet the Goldsinger, yes,” the goblin says as she smiles.  “I am Queen Nurnok the Last.  Now… Shall we speak, young Pharaoh, one royal to another?”

Seth nods soberly, “I would expect nothing less.”

* * *

 

Amane doesn’t get to speak to Nurnok.  What she does do is hurtle herself towards the hallway that leads towards the rickety carts that take people down to the vaults.  She leaps into one, pressing the palm of her hand into her mouth, trying to quiet her breathing. 

_ What the hell am I doing? _ She thinks, tears in her eyes.   _ When I go home… I can’t.  I can’t, he’ll kill me, if I do. _

Her mother will be worried sick and there’s no telling that her father won’t kill her if he can’t find Amane.  She can’t think.  She can’t breathe.

_ I should never have come here _ .  She must have been mad, thinking that she could just sneak away for a few hours and that her father wouldn’t notice.  But Nurnok’s words have been haunting her and all Amane can dream about is a shadowy figure, tall and stunningly beautiful, smiling down at her, thanking her being her closest friend.

_ The Daughter of Avalon _ , Amane thinks, remembering the warm embrace and the sense of calm that flowed over her.   _ The Secret Keeper.  It has to be her. _

Nurnok knew something and Amane had to talk to her again, hoping that she’d be able to shed some light on what she’d meant.  Except--

“What are you doing?”

Amane leaps up, wand stretching outwards as she points it towards… “You’re…”

“Honey?  Where did you go?  There’s a goblin looking for a little girl.  Have you seen anyone?” A woman’s voice calls out and Amane eye’s widen.

“Hide me!” She whispers, “Please.”

Blaise Zabini rolls his eyes, but still shouts out, “No, mother.  There’s no one here.”

He turns back to her, looking judgemental, “You’re Amane Andrews.”

“So?”  Amane frowns, hands on her hips.

“We’re engaged.”

“We  _ were _ engaged,” she corrects him.

He shrugs, “Nothing official yet.  Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“You telling me that your mother is going to keep pushing for us to marry after what my brother did?” Amane sneers.

Zabini snorts, “Who knows?  She’s never been picky about her own husbands, why should she be picky about my future wife.”

“You’re gross,” Aname snaps, but then crumples a little.  “Still… Thanks for not telling anyone I’m here.”

“Why are you hiding, anyways?” Zabini asks.

Amane swallows hard, “I ran away from home.”

“Why?”

“Pretty sure my dad will kill me if I go back…” It’s not an answer to his question, but it’s the only one she’s willing to give.

Zabini’s eyes widen before his shoulders sag just a little, “I’m… Oh.  Um…”

“It’s fine.  I’ll just… maybe hide here for a while,” she says awkwardly.

“Hide?  Here?” Zabini frowns, looking around at the slimy walls of the cave.  “Until what?  The semester starts?”

“Maybe,” Amane crosses her arms over her chest.  “What’s it to you?”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re stupid.”

“No.  Sorry.   _ That’s _ the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Zabini rolls his eyes.  He glances back towards where his mother is before focusing on Amane again.  “Look…”

“What?” She snaps.

“Just… You could… stay with us… for a while,” Zabini stares at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck.

Aname blinks, her arms falling to her side, “Are… Are you serious?”

“I mean, I’d have to ask my mother--”

“Ask your mother what?”

Amane looks over Zabini’s shoulder and sees his mother, beautiful and dark, standing there.  She’s raising an elegant eyebrow.

“She’s hiding from her father,” Zabini says quickly.  “She says he’ll kill her if he finds her.”

Mrs. Zabini regards Amane with her piercing eyes for a whole minute before sighing, “Fine.”

“Wha-- Really?” Amane’s heart pounds in her chest.

“You can stay, but I can’t keep you hidden for long,” Mrs. Zabini tells her, her expression going soft.  “It’s the least I can do for my future daughter-in-law.”

“ _ Former _ future daughter-in-law…” Amane mutters under her breath, low enough that no one can hear, but still, it doesn’t matter.  Because she’s safe, just for now.

She steals a glance at Blaise Zabini out of the corner of her eye.  He’s looking back at her.  Amane offers him a weak smile.

He gives her one back.


	9. Allies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Meron,” she says when she straightens up. Meron Tadesse tosses her cigarette onto the deck of the Cerulean and puts it out under the heel of her boat. Cassie tries to think about how her old major would make her scrub the toilets for a week if he saw her doing that.
> 
> “Cassandra,” Meron offers in return. She’s younger than Cassie by a few years, but her pitch black skin has weathered in a way that makes her look older than she is. Her short black hair is curled tight to her skull and her left index finger has been cut off at the first knuckle.
> 
> She has her mother’s eyes, Cassie thinks but doesn’t dare voice aloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): Midway Atoll is an unorganized, unincorporated territory belonging to the United States of America.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of hijacking, kidnapping, gore, murder, theft, the abandonment of a child, internalized misogyny, internalized racism, violence, and minor character(s) death.

“Welcome,” Cassie says as the last of her bone white wings disappear into her back, “to the  _ Cerulean _ .”

Bakura is officially impressed.

Floating forty five miles off the coast of Sand Island, the  _ Cerulean _ seems to be a miracle of engineering, a metal island constructed in the middle of the ocean.  Bakura takes a glance over the side, shielding his eyes from the harsh winds, and sees the water churning beneath them as the ship glides along towards it’s target.

Behind him, Joey has wrapped Cassie in a thick blanket, screening her naked body from the prying eyes of the pirates on board.  Clutching his own sheet around his waist like a poorly wrapped up toga, the two of them shuffle into the large tower located on the portside bow, shouldering past a woman who seemed intent on staring Cassie down.

The two of them had spent the last hour and a half shuttling their team from Kauai to the ship in dragon form.  Atem had ridden on Cassie’s back, while Bakura had begged off a lift from Joey.  He’s perfectly fine manipulating the air around him to propel himself into the air-- it’s how he’d gotten down the coastline so quickly in order to talk with Keith.  He could probably fly halfway around the world if he wanted to.

In that moment, Bakura thinks, inexplicably, of Amane, before he tamps down on it entirely.   _ You don’t deserve to be in her life anymore, after what you did _ , he thinks to himself.   _ She’s better off thinking that you’re dead. _

“Wow…” Atem whispers beside him.  He turns and offers her a grin.

Before the mages of San Francisco set out yesterday afternoon, Atem had disappeared for a few hours and had come back with her thick red hair woven into dreadlocks, combat boots, and bag full of clothes that she apparently bought at an army surplus store before proceeding to jam a baseball cap over his head.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, she’d also got herself some make up, as Atem had applied her eyeliner and lipstick before leaving the house.  Somehow, in all their flights, she had yet to smudge it.

“Yeah.  Wow,” he says back to her.  “Four days in and you’re elbow deep into a military campaign.  Seto at least waited a moment before sending me off to completely wreck the American Ministry of Magic.”

“So when the King Commander finally shows up--” Atem starts but Bakura cuts her off, laughing.

“I give him two hours before he’s marching on the International Confederation of Wizards,” he grins.  Atem elbows him in the side, eyes dancing with mirth before they sour ever so slightly.

Bakura turns and watches as Amanda and Tea pull a bound Reiko Kitamori across the deck.

The witch is blindfolded, her hands held together with zip ties and Amanda’s binding rope wrapped out her wrist.  Kitamori looks a little green and Bakura suspects that it’s from both the plane ride out of San Francisco that was quickly followed up by the thousand mile flight on the back of a dragon where she’d been completely unable to see the entire time, air hurtling past her at breakneck speeds.  Bakura’s actually surprised that she hadn’t thrown up.

He jinxes it when Kitamori falls to her knees just outside of the tower and vomits uncontrollably all over the floor.

“Oh my god, are you alright?” Amanda is asking when Bakura and Atem get close enough.

“I’m… I’m fine.  I just… urgh,” and that’s all they get out of their prisoner before she’s back to hurling up what’s left in her guts.

“Seasick?” Atem asks and Bakura watches as Kitamori tracks her voice to determine her location, head turning in a way that, had the witch not been blindfolded, would have resulted in direct eye contact.

“No.  But you already knew that,” Kitamori says, mouth turning upwards in a weak attempt at a smile.  “Just… nerves, I guess.”

“Tell the truth now,” Amanda says softly and-- wow, Kitamori actually manages to hesitate for a full second before the Spellcaster’s binding takes hold.

“I am telling the truth,” she mutters under her breath.  “It’s just nerves.  I promise.”

Amanda makes silent eye contact with Atem, who’s undoubtedly watching her spell for any signs that Kitamori had found a way around it.  When she nods, Amanda lets out a sigh of relief.

“Come on.  We’ll get you inside and clean you up,” Amanda says as she helps the witch to her feet.  “Tea?  I’ll see you later?”

“Of course,” Tea answers, giving her girlfriend a kiss before gesturing to her backpack, addressing Bakura and Atem.  “I’ve got to go get set up in communications.”

She waves goodbye before walking off.

“And we’ve got a date with Cassie’s mom,” Bakura reminds Atem, who nods and heads inside the tower with him a step behind.

The captain of the  _ Cerulean _ looks very little like her daughter, who’s tall and sturdily built, arms thick with corded muscle.  In contrast, Cassie’s mother is even shorter than Bakura-- hell, she’s shorter than  _ Atem _ .  There’s a single, beady black eye left in her skull and a head shaved bald, her face lined with age and covered in sun-weathered, nut brown skin.  Inky, black tattoos cover her arms and heavily scarred knuckles, and she stands as if her right knee has been broken one too many times.

Bakura immediately takes a liking to her.  And judging by how her lips peel back into a grin, revealing yellowing teeth, she likes him too.

“Bakura,” he says, introducing himself.  When she takes his hand, her grip is bruisingly tight.

“Captain Betina Peres Almeida,” she returns.  When she turns to Atem, Almeida asks, “And you are?”

“Atem.”

“Short names for short people,” Almeida sneers.

Bakura offers her a crooked smirk in return, “Look who’s talking.”

Almeida snorts before sitting down in the captain’s chair, feet up on the dash of the ship she controlled, “Anyone ever told you that you’d better watch that smart mouth of yours?”

“A few.  I vividly remember my mother threatening to cut out my tongue if I didn’t stop calling my father’s wife a mean bitch,” Bakura tells her.

“Hmmph, and how old were you then?”

Bakura shrugs, “Probably four.”

“Hah!  Still haven’t learned, have you, boy?” Almeida laughs, “And what about you, girly?  Your mother ever threaten to cut out your tongue?  No…” Her smile turns cruel, “No, you probably came from a good home with a good family and never had to work a day in your life.  Don’t tell me, I know your type.  You can smell it on them, can’t you?  Eh, Bakura?”

Atem opened her mouth to speak, but Bakura sends her a look at makes her stop

The thing is, there probably wasn’t anything Atem could say in order to convince Almeida that she hadn’t lived a life of privilege.  Mostly because, well, Atem  _ had _ been born into royalty and experienced all the perks that came with it, so Almeida wasn’t exactly wrong on that front.  But also because, in Bakura’s experience, women like Almeida-- women who moved to cut down other women without knowing a damn thing about them, usually had no interest in hearing what they had to say in the first place.

It makes Bakura feel a little gross inside and his opinion of Almeida lowers a considerable amount.

“Atem’s past isn’t what we’re here to discuss,” Bakura says, his smirk dropping as he moved to the control panel that Almeida had propped her feet up on.  He hops up onto it, elbows resting on his knees, legs spread wide and taking up as much room as he can.  “We’ve come to discuss the terms of our arrangement.”

Almeida waves him off, “I know, I know.  You want me circling an island that doesn’t exist on any map, let my daughter play with some helicopters and then take you all back to the mainland when your done.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Atem says.

“That’s as complicated as it needs to be,  _ querida _ ,” Almeida coos at her.

Bakura is so glad for Atem’s nearly unbreakable poker face, because the only reason he knows that she’s three seconds away from punching this woman is because he knows her all too well.

“We need you to stay just beyond the horizon,” Bakura stresses.  “They won’t be able to track you, as long as you stay out of sight--”

“Oh  _ relax _ , Bakura.  You think that this is my first run in with wizards?” Almeida rolls her sole remaining eye.  She doesn’t wear an eyepatch, leaving the empty socket hollow in what Bakura assumes is an intimidation tactic.  “We run into them all the time whenever we swing by Cape Town.  Hell, we do quite a bit of trade with the fuckers up by Porto-Novo.”

“Really?” Bakura questions, but isn’t too surprised.  He know what ‘trade’ means, in his line of work.

Almeida shrugs, “Well… Trade is a bit of an exaggeration.  I take their gold and, sometimes, they get to live, maybe even work for me.  It’s just good business.”

Bakura doesn’t know if he has room to talk.  His title is literally the  _ Thief _ King.  Except, that wasn’t the point of his question.  The fact that Almeida assumed that he didn’t know what she was talking about meant that she had no idea who he was or, for that matter, who Atem was.  Which means that Cassie probably hasn’t guessed, either.  Or if she has, didn’t feel the need to share that information.

“What I’m saying is, that I know how to navigate around their anti-muggle shielding,” Almeida says.

“Non-magic,” Atem corrects her, her expression grim.

“Hmmm?”

“Non-magic, not--”

“Don’t correct me, little girl.  I can call myself whatever I want.  And I don’t need you magic-types telling me what’s what, like you know a damn thing,” Almeida rolls her eyes.  “Besides, if you are so desperate for  _ my _ help, then what good are you mages anyways?  Let’s be real, the world is probably better off without your fights.  Maybe I’ll just back out, save my crew the trouble.”

Bakura can literally see the moment that Atem has enough.  To be fair, Bakura’s right there with her.

Atem blinks, flicks her hand, and the lights flicker once before they go out entirely.  The computer screens around them go blank and the sound of the ship shutting down echoes around them.  Below, shouts of confusion ring out from the deck and the hallways of the command tower.

Almeida jumps up in her chair, “ _ O que? O que está acontecendo? Por que estamos _ _ \-- _ ”  She reaches for a radio, “Kebade!  Meron!  Come in!”

“You’re going to listen,” Atem says, her voice cold.

“Shut up, girl!  I don’t have time for this,” Almeida shouts without looking up, throwing the radio down when she gets no response and pressing buttons on the control panel.  “ _ Maldição, se este é o rato da minha filha, então eu vou-- _ ” 

“It’s not your ‘daughter’s rat’.  This is me,” Atem says, raising her hand and twisting her fingers, turning them towards the starboard side.  Immediately, the engines turn on and the  _ Cerulean _ starts to move forwards again, tilting towards the right.

“Look, we really wanted to do this nicely,” Bakura sighs, kicking his feet against the consol he’s sitting on.  “But since it doesn’t look like you’re not going to co-operate…”  

“You think you can scare me, you little bastard?” Almeida curses, “This is  _ my _ ship!   _ Mine! _ ”

“And now it’s ours,” he shrugs.  Almeida lashed out with her fist, but Bakura just let it pass through him, phasing in and out of existence as he waited for the right moment.  Before she could reach for the gun on her hip, Bakura kicks out with his foot and catches her bad knee to stun her, blasting a wave of air at the same time to knock her off her feet.  She flew backwards, straight into Atem.

The Lady Pharaoh returns control to the ship, letting its engines return to their regularly scheduled route and concentrating on Almeida with her entire mind.  She’d slipped into the captain’s nervous system and done something so that Almeida’s whole body seemed to seize up, leaving her unable to move.

“See, Cassie told us about you before we came here,” Bakura tells her, sliding off the console and standing up as straight as his spine would allow him.  “She says you abandoned her and her father the moment it became convenient for you.  She told us about how you run this ship, how you put your people through the ringer just to see if they can survive.  She told us your kill count, the charges leveled against you, how you’ll never see the inside of a cell if you’re ever caught-- at best, it’s a firing squad for you.  She told us a lot.

“But, you see, I don’t think that’s the whole story,” Bakura continued on, watching as Almeida’s eye twitched in it’s socket, the only thing she seemed able to move.  “Because I know people like you.  So I don’t really agree with Cassie on one thing.  I don’t think you abandoned her and her father because it was convenient.  I think you let them go because it’s was the smart thing to do.

“On January 1st, 1987, the  _ Maudelyn _ , a yacht containing the son of the aging French Vice-Admiral, Gérôme Bleu, goes missing off the coast of Liberia.  Ransom demands are made four months later, an absurd amount of government money changes hands, but Raymond Bleu is not seen or heard of for just over a year,” Bakura recounts the old newspaper article he’d found online while they’d been in Kauai.  “When he is, he’s got a baby girl in his arms.”

“The daughter he had with you,” Atem points out and lets Almeida go.  The captain doesn’t fall, but she does stumble forwards a few steps, moving her weight of her bad leg.  She glares at her feet before spitting on the floor.

“Raymond was a fool…,” Almeida snorts, but it’s almost sad.  Like she missed him.  “Foolish enough that, when he got kidnapped, he tried to charm the only woman with his stupid grin and stupid face and his  _ stupid _ ,  _ stupid _ laugh.  And I was just as stupid, too.  For falling for it.”

She laughs and it sounds broken, lonely, and tired.  “He bought me my  _ Cerulean _ with the ransom money, after he found out I was pregnant.  It was a  _ wedding gift _ , he said, to me, the prettiest girl in the world.  He was practically part of the crew by then, laughing and drinking, stealing and killing with the best of us.  Kebade told him he must have been blind to think that, but it was sweet and I loved him for it.  And I could just pretend that he wasn’t some billionaire  _ pirralho _ with a fiance waiting back at home for him.

“So why’d you leave them behind?” Bakura asks.

“Why do you think?  They found us somehow,” Almeida snaps.  “The  _ Cerulean _ isn’t exactly a speedboat.  We can’t stay hidden forever, even in the ocean.  And back then, we could barely even pilot this thing.  So when his father tracked us down, I dumped Raymond and Cassandra on the nearest island so they’d stop chasing my crew, give us some time to escape.”  The captain sighs and moves to the window, staring out a thousand miles ahead.  “Last I heard of Raymold Bleu, he’d married his fiance and had four sons by her.  I didn’t even know Cassandra was still alive, let alone living with him, until Raymond called me and told me how she’d been lost at sea.  I found her clinging to a buoy with seagulls pecking at her skin two days later.”

“Wizards did that to her, you know?” Atem says, but Almeida cuts her off.

“I know what they did.  Do you think I’m that stupid?   _ I know what they did to my baby _ ,” Almeida shouts.  “And now she wants to go back in, fight them again, after they almost killed her.  You lot aren’t worth a drop of her blood.  No one in this world is.”

“What Cassie decides to do is her business.  No one is forcing her to fight.  She’s doing it because she believes that it’s the right thing to do, even if it’s so much easier to sit back and ignore what’s going on,” Bakura tells her.  “You know what it’s like to make hard choices.  You made one to save her and her father the day you left them on that beach.”

“You could have gunned Gérôme’s ships down.  The weapons on board this model of ship are easy enough to launch-- you could have figured it out, if you wanted to.  But you gave Raymond and Cassandra up, because you knew that life for them would be better if you did,” Atem tells her.  “Maybe it’s time you tell your daughter that?”

“She doesn’t want to listen to me,” Almeida admits, turning back towards them.

“Maybe it’s time you gave her a reason to,” Atem says in return.

Almeida regards the two of them for a moment, silent in her judgement, before snorting and placing her hands on her hips, “Oh, what the hell?  I’m sixty-three.  I’ve lived too long and haven’t got that many years left in me anyways.  Fine.  You bastards have a ship to fight your wars.  But you listen to me, you fuckers.  If there is a single hair out of place on Cassandra’s head, I’ll kill you both.  Do you understand?”

Bakura nods and steps forwards, offering his hand.  Almeida blinks, spits in her palm, and slaps their hands together.  She grins at the grimace on Atem’s face.

“Too gross for you,  _ querida _ ?” She asks.

This time, Atem just sighs, “A little.  What can I say?  I’m used to signing papers.”

Almeida throws her head back and laughs, “ _ Papers _ ?  You can stop a ship with your mind and they have you signing  _ papers _ ?!”

Atem finally,  _ finally _ , offers her a smile, “Well, someone’s got to do them.”

“Papers…  _ Merda, _ another fucking politician,” Almeida chuckles, unbelieving.  “What’s it with people like you settling for people like us?”

Bakura feels the back of his neck heat up, shameful embarrassment sweeping over him.  But then Atem speaks, “Settling?  If anyone was doing that, it was Bakura.  The gods know that he could have gone with less complicated options.”

And Bakura can’t help but laugh.  Because if he doesn’t his mask is going to crack.

It’s something that he realizes is necessary for ruling, that sometimes, you had to be willing to outright lie to people to get them to do what you need them to.  Because Cassie had explained enough of what really happened between  Betina Peres Almeida and Raymond Bleu for both him and Atem to know that no matter what Almeida might do or promise, there’s no way that Cassie will let her back into her life.

But they need the  _ Cerulean _ , and they need it captained by Almeida and her crew, not controlled by Atem.  Because they need Atem on the island, not holed up here using all of her concentration to keep a ship moving in a circle around a dot on a map.  So Bakura will lie to a woman who just wants to get to know her estranged daughter, lie through his fucking teeth, because that’s what needs to happen to get them on and off that godforsaken island with all their people.

So the Thief King laughs and so does the Lady Pharaoh.  Because right now they’re not Bakura and Atem.

Because right now, they are Kings.

* * *

Cassie’s satellite phone begins to ring the moment that she finishes strapping the last of her gear into place.  She looks at the caller ID for a few seconds to make sure that she recognizes the person on the other end-- because the one and only time she’d picked up without doing that, it had been an unlucky telemarketer from Dubai trying to sell her car insurance while she was in the middle of a mission in Madrid.

As it stand, exactly four people on the planet have the ability to call this number.  The first one is Odion Ishtar, the man behind the moniker of both Scorpion King and Lord Jackal.  The second is Leo, who takes it upon himself to call her up randomly to talk about anything under the sun.  The thing about them is that, if they call her during an opp, they know better than to expect an answer.

But the final two people are her mother and father, back at home in France.  And Cassie has literally answered them in the middle of battle before because there isn’t a force on earth that could stop her from picking up the phone when they call.

Raymond and Nathalie Bleu, along with all of Cassie’s brothers, went through three long days when she was eighteen not knowing if she was alive or dead before receiving a call from the  _ Cerulean _ .  She’ll never make them wait that long ever again.

“ _ Maman!  Papa! _ ” She smiles as she answers the call, slipping into the French language.  “How are you?”

Cassie is apparently on speaker phone, because all she hears is the chorus of shouts from her brothers in the background, Henry’s voice standing out amongst all of them as he excitedly screams in a way that reminds her that he’s barely eleven years old.

“Well, that answers that…” Cassie laughs.

“Cassie…” Her father sounds concerned, “Lord knows that it should be me who’s asking that question.  Has she--”

“Almeida barely seems to be able to make eye contact with me, let alone strike up a conversation,” Cassie says, rolling her eyes.  “Not that I’d want her to start one in the first place.”

“And you haven’t mentioned--”

“ _ Papa _ , come on.  You know that I’m not going to tell her that,” Cassie scowls.

“I know, I know.  I just… I worry.  Ever since she’s come back into our lives, it’s been one thing after another,” Raymond sighs on the other end of the phone.

“You did what you had to do,  _ papa _ , and I am thankful for it,” Cassie tells him.

“How long until you ship out?” Her mother asks, all business.  Cassie smiles from the familiarity.  Leave it to Nathalie Bleu to remain calm in such tense circumstances.  She’s always admired that about her mother.

“Not long.  We’re just loading up the choppers now,” she answers, hoping that neither of them catch the thing she wants to fly over their heads.

Except, both her parents are seasoned politicians, and wishing for something like that is just unrealistic.

“Choppers?  Plural?  Who’s piloting the second one?” Her father asks.

Cassie glances towards the bow, where the second wave of the invasion are getting settled in the open cargo hold of the helicopter.  The pilot is leaning against the side, a cigarette hanging from her mouth, starring Cassie down just like she has since they first landed here.

Feeling uncomfortable, she looks away.

“Tadesse’s gonna do it,” she answers.

There’s a tense few seconds of silence before her mother asks, “Which one’s that again?  The first mate?”

“No.  Not Kebede.  His kid, Meron,” she corrects them in stilted sentences.

“Oh,” her father says, and that’s the end of that conversation.

“Yeah.  Look, I gotta go.  I promise I’ll call once I’m back on the  _ Cerulean _ , okay?” Cassie tucks the phone in between her ear and her shoulder, leaning down to tie the shoelaces of her boot.

“Be careful, my darling,” her father whispers softly and she can feel his love for her pouring through the phone.

“I know,  _ papa, maman.  J’taime. _ ”

“ _ J’taime ausie _ ,” he says back and her brothers pipe in in the background and, god, she misses them so,  _ so _ much.  It’s been over a year since she’s been home and she’s missed all of them growing up.  Alexis was in university now and Rémi’s just started grad school.  She can remember when they were just babies in the nursery, how she’d watched their tiny faces with utter fascination.

_ Fucking Department, _ she swears, and then hangs up the phone.

A shadow falls over her.  Cassie looks up and sees the pilot of the second helicopter standing above her.  Cassie sighs, and finishes with her shoelace to buy a few seconds to compose her expression.

“Meron,” she says when she straightens up.  Meron Tadesse tosses her cigarette onto the deck of the  _ Cerulean _ and puts it out under the heel of her boat.  Cassie tries to think about how her old major would make her scrub the toilets for a week if he saw her doing that.

“Cassandra,” Meron offers in return.  She’s younger than Cassie by a few years, but her pitch black skin has weathered in a way that makes her look older than she is.  Her short black hair is curled tight to her skull and her left index finger has been cut off at the first knuckle.

_ She has her mother’s eyes _ , Cassie thinks but doesn’t dare voice aloud.

“Is there something I can help you with?” She asks tightly.

“Yeah, actually,” Meron shrugs.  “Tell your red head friend over there that if she fucks with my engines again, I don’t care what kind of crazy mage she is, I’ll put a bullet in her skull.”

Cassie glances over to where Atem is strapping herself into the second helicopter before looking back at Meron, “Tell her yourself.  You are the engineer on this ship after all.”

Meron frowns, “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

“I’m not.  Just making a recommendation,” Cassie says nonchalantly.  “How’s Lee?”

Meron hesitates for a second, as if unsure of how to talk to Cassie about who she assumes is the pirate’s boyfriend, “Fine.  Kenny and I are fine.  How’s that computer genius you hang out with all the time?”

“Leo is as well as can be expected,” Cassie answers.  She nods, their pleasantries exchanged, and ends the conversation.

Cassie turns around and walks away.  A hand comes down hard on her shoulder and Cassie reacts, moving to flip Meron.  But the pirate is just as fast, just as well trained, and moving in mid air, shifting her weight to throw Cassie off balance and--

They both end up falling to the deck, rolling around and exchanging punches, clawing and tearing at each other.  Cassie tries to blast Meron off her with a controlled burst of electricity, but Meron counters, pulling her wand from its holster and crying out some word that forces Cassie’s limbs to lock up, making her fall to the ground.

Meron straddles her and smirks, raising her fist and--

Cassie wrenches herself free, her powers of healing throwing the spell off her, and kicks Meron hard in the stomach.  As the pirate slides backwards, she slashes her wand through the air and clips Cassie with another spell.  Pain jolts down her arm and she shouts, trying to orient herself.  But that’s just enough time for Meron to catch herself and begin her counter attack, launching herself once against at Cassie.

“What is going on here?!”

The voice makes Meron stop in her tracks, but not Cassie, who lands a blow that knocks the pirate back to the deck.  Cassie looks up to see Kebede, the  _ Cerulean _ ’s massive first mate, his own wand pointed at both of them.  Without a word, his spell launches them feet first into the air and leaves them there dangling.

“This is foolishness,” Kebede growls, his voice impossibly low and thick with his accent.  “Here we are, heading out to raid the most dangerous island on the face of the earth, and you two have decided to act more like children than the grown women you are.  Shame on both of you.”

“She started it!” Meron snaps, her teeth bloody.

“And I am ending it,” Kebede says back, dropping them both on the ground.  “I pulled you both from your mother and I will throw you both into the ocean if I have to.  Now go!”

He drops them unceremoniously on the deck and points towards the choppers, banishing them back to their duties.  Cassie scowls openly at Meron, transforming her teeth into that of the White Dragon, only to see the pirate-witch make a threatening motion with her wand.

Kebebe barks again, “Enough!”

Cassie slinks back to the helicopter, trying not to feel the eyes from every single person to deck as she slides into the cockpit.  Slipping the radio headset over here ears, she hears the voice of Tea Gardner speaking from atop the  _ Cerulean _ ’s commander tower.

“Who… Who was that?” The girl (and that’s all Gardner is, just a little girl in way over her head) asks.

Cassie flips on the engines and starts her checks of the engine.  Looking across at the bow, she can see Meron doing the same thing as the blades of the chopper begin to turn.

“That’s Captain Almeida’s daughter,” she says.  

“Oh...  _ Oh _ ,” Gardner says awkwardly.  “Um… They have wizards on board here?”

“Yeah.  Like, a quarter the crew.  They got a bunch of mages, too.  Most people connected to the criminal underground have magical ties.  Now, can you give me the coordinates so we can get this show on the road,” Cassie snaps as her powers of self-healing remove the headache from behind her eyes.

“Oh, um… yeah.  One sec’... Here you go,” the girl says and onboard GPS flashes with a location in the middle of the sea as she inputs the data.

“Thanks,” Cassie says and then addresses the crew behind her, pulling back on the controls to get them airboard (a few seconds before Meron, she observes with a smirk).  “Alright, everyone!  Please keep your hands and feet within the helicopter at all times, unless you’re making a jump, in which case, feel fucking free to do whatever you want.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” comes Joey Wheeler’s voice through the radio.

“Please don’t,” Cassie fires back at they move away from the  _ Cerulean _ and fly over open waters, Meron’s chopper following along fifty meters back.  “Some poor schmuck is going to have to clean that later and it’s not going to be me.”

“Dude, how the fuck can you travel at a million miles an hour as a freaking  _ dragon _ , but you get airsick on a chopper?” Duke Devlin questions before there’s the unmistakable sound of Wheeler retching into what Cassie hopes is a paper bag.  “Oh god,  _ gross! _ ”

“It’s  _ different _ , Duke!” Wheeler shouts back.

“No, it’s not!”

It’s so reminiscent of the old, playful fights she’s used to have with Rémi and Alexis, with Stephané and even little Henry-- god, she misses them so much.

_ I want to go home _ , she thinks, lonely and desperate.   _ I just want to go home _ .

Just then, the satellite phone pings and Cassie will never understand how he does it, but Leo has impossibility sent her a text message.

**> be safe**

She smiles softly, thinking of the sickly boy back in Toronto, working for the Jackals from a bed that some days he didn’t even have the strength to leave.  Cassie reaches for the phone and sends back:

> always

* * *

 

The island comes into view just as the sun dips below the horizon, the lights from the windows flickering in the darkness.  Bakura watches at the helicopter banks around the cliffline and rises above the cloud line.

“Can they hear the blades?” Duke whispers as he looks out the window.

“No,” Cassie’s voice cracks through the radio.  “We’re high enough up that it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“‘ _ Shouldn’t? _ ’” Duke echoes, but his concerns go unanswered.

“Why did we think that dropping down would be a good idea?” Joey’s voice is muffled from where he’s hidden his face in between his knees.  The guy’s been green the entire trip, unable to keep anything that they try to get him to eat down.

“I’ll be controlling our descent,” Bakura mutters, touching the Millennium Ring under his gear.  His vision inverts and he sees the names of the souls patrolling the island.   _ They have no idea we’re here.  This won’t be a fight.  It’ll be a slaughter. _

He swallows hard around the pit lodged in his throat,  _ Is this was Aknadin felt like as he looks upon Kul Elna for the first time? _  But then he decides that, no, a monster like Aknadin would never have felt a hint of remorse.

“Let’s do this,” Amanda says, her voice low and dangerously calm.  She clutches her staff in one hand, a gun in another.

Bakura has a handgun strapped to his leg himself, another smaller piece attached to his ankle.  He and the others are dressed in military fatigues that Duke had apparently got at a discount from the ‘guys’ he got their weaponry from, all but Amanda.  The Spellcaster stood out in bright contrast, wearing the bright yellow and white of Monthu, the Egyptian god of warfare and military valor.  After she wraps a long, dark coat around her body, cinching the knot of the belt around her waist, Amanda looks as ready for battle as he’s ever seen her.

“I’m going to open the cargo door,” Cassie says from the cockpit.  “Once you’ve cleared the cliff, I’ll contact the other chopper, so the second wave can come through.”

“Okay,” Bakura says and nods even though he knows that Cassie can’t see him.

“Amanda, I love you,” Gardner’s voice comes over the radio from where’s she’s safe on the  _ Cerulean _ .  “Come home safe.”

“I love you, too.  I have to go.  I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Amanda says softly, gently touching the headset before lifting it from her head.  Bakura and the others follow suit and the door at the back of the chopper opens up.

The wind rushes in and they all have to grab that the loops of fabric hanging from the ceiling for balance.  Bakura reaches out with his magic and gains control.  He nods to the others and, with all the grace of the circus performer he used to be, flings himself into the open air.

He loves the feeling of the wind around him, loves it like it’s a part of himself.  Bakura throws his hands out, his legs out, and embraces it like a lost sister, like it’s Amane or… He falters, just for a second, and realizes that he can’t remember the name of his  _ own _ sister, of his mother or either of his grandparents.  But he can’t lose concentration now, not when the lives of his friends are in his hands, so he focuses himself and grabs hold of the air.

Bakura sends a current upwards, slowing their fall until they’re practically floating downwards at a slow pace.  They land on the island with nothing more than a soft whisper, invisible in the dark.

For a moment, all they do is breathe in the darkness.

Then, Bakura reaches out with the most subtle power of the Millennium Ring and his vision inverts once more and he sees the figures of the Unspeakables walking around the open grounds before them.  He nods, holding this knowledge within him, and Joey, Amanda, and Duke all press their palms to his skin.

He and Atem had talked this over with Joey and Seto before they’d even decided that it would be a good idea to fully activate either one of the Millennium Items, since there was always the fact that the person on the island who was using one was going to know that a divine weapon was active.  But, Seto and Joey both agreed that, as people who had used one of the Items before, there was no way of being able to tell who a wielder was or where they were.

So as far as the Eye’s new master would know, someone was using a weapon, but any other questions would remain a mystery.

And so--

* * *

 

At exactly 11:00pm SST, a series of events occur around the world.

A man jerks upright in his bed, coughing up blood into a wad of kleenex, until his older brother comes rushing into the room.

Two people, one dead and one very much alive, catch themselves against the wall, gasping suddenly in surprise.

Maximillion Pegasus rolls unceremoniously rolls out of bed and onto the floor, clutching the golden orb that is lodged in his head.  “Who…?!” He thrashed wildly and runs out the door.

Albus Dumbledore pauses in the middle of an interview with a potential new teacher and clutches his robes under his desk so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

A shattered mess of a soul bites it own tongue and clamps down on the mind of Quirinus Quirrell, refusing to let him show any reaction to the horrendous pain they both feel in front of the soul’s greatest adversary.

A diary belonging to a former Hogwarts student shakes it’s way across the stone depths of the Malfoy Manor, trying to head towards the door of the room it’s in.

A mystical ring of unearthly power rattles around on the floor of the last property belonging to the House of Gaunt as sparks fly from the stone inlayed in the plain golden band.

A locket hidden within a dresser in London clatters around it’s confinement, nearly breaking the lock placed upon the drawer by old elven magic.

A cup, hidden deep within a Gringotts vault, jumps from golden pile to golden pile, causing everything that it touches to multiply over and over again.

A beautiful diadem leaps into the air and knocks over a pile of books, trapping itself beneath them.

A boy with green eyes and a lightning scar jumps out of his seat at school, causing his cousin to point and laugh wildly.

And finally, a woman with thick red hair and blue eyes looks across the room at a man called Blaine Garrish and Aloc Flint and countless other names and frowns.  “This is unexpected,” the woman says.  “We may need to act quickly.”

* * *

 

\--so Bakura activates the Millennium Ring and brands the names and locations of the Unspeakables on the cliff into the very souls of his companions.

“Whoa… So that’s what yours feels like,” Joey murmurs under his breath.

“Did the Scale feel different?” Bakura asks.

Joey nods, “Yeah.  Less soul stuff.  More morality.  Intent.  Judgement.”

He doesn’t say anything else, so Bakura gives the go ahead.   _ It’s time _ .

Covering their faces and hair with black baseball hats and bandanas, they moved silently across the grassy cliff at a steady pace.  Bakura led the group, remembering the island and it’s building from the time he’d spent here as both Ryou Andrews and the Spirit of the Ring.  It feels a bit like he’s sleepwalking, like he’s moving through a place that he’s intimately familiar with and yet has never stepped food on in his entire life.

_ I died on these cliffs _ , he allows himself to think before focusing on the task at hand.

They meet their first wizard a few minutes in and Duke ensures that he’s not a problem by firing a single round through his silencer.  The wizard drops to the ground before he even knows something is wrong.  Joey picks up the wand that the Unspeakable didn’t have time to draw and flings it over the cliff.  Bakura hears a small splash, barely noticeable against the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below.

As quickly and efficiently as they can, the four of them clear the plains surrounding the fortress in the middle of the island.  At one point, Bakura stops the breathing of a witch by taking control of the very air in her lungs, giving her just enough time to get a glimpse of her killer before she dies.  He remembers her face from Ryou’s memories; she’d been one of the two witches who’d thrown him into the cell with Rex, Weevil, and Rebecca.

She doesn’t recognize him now - not that he expects her to.  After the life leaves her body, Bakura pockets her wand, using his ability to steal other people’s powers to give him the ability to use wizarding magic once more.

As soon as all the lights from the souls of the patrol team go out, the four of them reconvene on the eastern cliffside.  Amanda pulls out a length of rope from the pocket of her coat and starts to tie a series of knots in it, muttering under her breath.

“ _ ~The waiting is over.  No more needs to be said.  We have reached the goal we have worked hard to obtain.~” _

Bakura doesn’t see the result of her spell, but that’s the whole point.  Within a few minutes, they get their response in the form of Atem descending down a rope with Kitamori, Kebede, and Almeida in toe.  They are quickly followed by about twenty other magics (mage and wizard both) and non-magics from San Francisco and the  _ Cerulean _ .

“Alright, you know the plan,” Bakura says.  “Try to remain under the radar until the anti-technology spell goes down.”

“Good luck everyone.  Gods watch over us all,” Atem whispers.  “Kitamori, you’re with us.”

The witch nods, pulling her wands from the side holsters.  She refused a gun, Bakura notices.  Not that he blames her.  He’s not exactly sure how well he’s going to fair using one, having never even held a gun in his life before this point.

They split into three groups: Bakura’s group of Atem and Kitamori are going after the spell’s anchor as well as finding Maximillion Pegasus.  Another group, led by Duke and Joey were heading towards the dungeons to collect their kidnapped friends.  And finally, Amanda’s group would hold the cliff and wait for the helicopters to come down, at which point they’d be joined by Cassie and Meron.

_ It’s a good plan, _ Bakura thinks as he and the two women flatten themselves against the wall next to the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.   _ As long as nothing goes wrong-- _  He catches himself just in time.   _ Famous last words?  Thoughts?.   _ Even if they weren’t verbalized, it was probably for the best not to jinx it.

“If they still think I’m dead, they probably haven’t changed the access spells,” Kitamori says, waving her wand at the front door.  It doesn’t open.  “Shit.”

“Shit, indeed,” Atem nods.  “Bakura?  If you may?”

Bakura grabs hold of both their hands and sends his powers of both invisibility and intangibility coursing through them, pulling them through the entranceway of the fortress.  

“Which way?” He asks Atem, who presses her free hand into the stone wall beside them, reading the spells imprinted in them.

“The power is radiating from that direction,” she tells him, pointing towards a archway on the left side.

The Department’s fortress is made up of a series of corridors that all look exactly alike, making it frighteningly easy to get lost in.  If it weren’t for Atem guiding them, Bakura doesn’t know how long it would take him to clear the entire building.

Along the way, they pass by a wizard who looks to be barely out of his teens slumped against the walls, dead eyes wide with terror.  A little further down the hall is a room filled with the broken and bloody bodies of five Unspeakables.  Bakura feels Kitamori tense up a bit and asks, “Did you know them?”

“No,” she says, final.

They move on.

The spell’s path leads them up five flights of stairs and down another series of twisting monochrome corridors before they are finally greeted by a simple wooden door.

“The door’s warded by some very complex spellwork,” Atem says.  “I don’t know how long it will take me to break it.”

“Could you show me?” Kitamori asks, “Maybe I know something?”

Bakura smirks, “You know, neither of you clearly knows the first thing about breaking into something.  Why don’t you just ask the expert?”

“You’re a thief?”  Kitamori asks at the same time that Atem says, “Oh, and what’s your plan, then?”

He catches the grin on her lips and knows that Atem is genuinely asking and not making fun of him.  Bakura shrugs, “The same way we got around the access spells around front.”  When Kitamori blinks at him, he chuckles, “People are always so concerned about locking the door up with magic that they never guard the walls around it.”

“That’s… Well, you’re not wrong,” the witch raises a brow, but Bakura can see her brain working behind her eyes.

Beyond the door is an office, with a gaudy looking desk surrounded by shelves filled with moving wizarding pictures.  A single figure stars in the grand majority of them: a man with long salt and pepper hair, tied in a horse tale at the back of his neck.

When Kitamori refuses to even look at them, Atem makes a guess, “Is that Pegasus?”

“Yes,” the witch answers, looking as green as Joey had on the chopper ride over.  Her hand moves towards her stomach before she pushes it down to her sides and--

_ Oh _ .

“He got me pregnant when I was seventeen,” Kitamori admits.  “Right before they sent me to kill Ariana Dumbledore.  When I asked her to, Helena helped me get rid of it, helped me to make sure that I could never get pregnant again.  I was so,  _ so _ happy to not have to have his baby that I killed for her whenever she wanted.”

“I’m sorry,” Atem whispers, eyes down.

“It was a long time ago.  I thought I’d be over it, but then I saw him again for the first time a few months ago, and I could barely keep the memories down,” the witch laughs in a way that shows that she found nothing about this funny.  “Pegasus… he looked me dead in the eye and commanded me exactly like he used to… but he never even recognized me, not once.”

“Did he know?  About…?” Bakura gestures vaguely.

“No.  Thank Merlin,” Kitamori shakes her head and changes the topic.  “Where’s the spell coming from?”

Atem glances around the room before settling her gaze on the plaque behind the dress, “There.”

The plaque, Bakura notes, is a congradulations towards Pegasus for the creation of the mage conversation program.  He swallows hard, thinking of Ryou and all the pain and torture that he’d had to go through just so that this bastard could get this damn hunk of metal with his name carved in it, just so that the Department could make a quick buck.

Atem pulls the plaque from the wall and sits down in the desk chair, tinkering with spellwork that only she can see.

“This shouldn’t take me too long,” she says.  “Three minutes.  Tops.”

“Let me see the magic,” Bakura says.  “If we work together, we can get it done in one.”

When Atem touches his wrist, she injects her power into his magic, allowing him to see the shifting ruins and symbols that made up the spell attached to the plaque.  It would look almost like a giant spiderweb, had the lines not been so crisp and clean that it was almost like someone had used a ruler to draw them.  The edges of the web stretched out beyond the plaque, adhering themselves to the pin on the nail on the wall, then run along the very brickwork of the room.

Bakura looks up to see Reiko Kitamori staring at them, blinking in fascination, “Wait, so you can actually  _ see _ magic?”

“See it.  Manipulate it.  It’s all just energy at the end of the day,” Atem says without looking up.

“How have we never heard of you before?” Kitamori mutters, almost to herself.  Bakura holds back a snort.

“Look, there’s an alarm system built into it,” Bakura points towards one of the inner circle of the web, one that shifts between deep red and a bruise-like purple every few seconds.

“And a secondary alarm, in case we cut that one,” Atem says, guiding his gaze towards one of the innermost point.

“You’ll have to take out both at the same time before you tackle the web,” Bakura nods.

“We might not have enough time for that,” Kitamori says, and a crack echoes through the room.

The house elf that appears before them is ugly and wrinkled, with wisps of hair on his head and upper lip.  The rag clinging to his skinny hips is covered in dirt and grime.

“Master commanded Croquet to defend the room.  Master does not like traitors,” the elf’s mouth peals back to reveal rows and rows of blunted teeth.  He moves to snap his fingers.

Atem throws out her hand at the same time that Bakura does the same.  The elf’s magic lances almost half a foot in front of him before Atem’s powers stop them cold.  Croquet wheezes, the air from his lungs suddenly limited.  Kitamori’s wand arches through the air, and a green beam of light hits the elf dead in the chest.  He clams up, huge eyes widening even further, before he falls back with a thud.

“Hurry up.  If Pegasus calls for the elf and it doesn’t respond, he’ll know something’s gone wrong,” Kitamori says, moving around the desk and opening one of the drawers, leafing through the files inside.  “Come on… come on…”

“What are you looking for?”  Bakura asks as Atem refocuses on the plaque.

“Pegasus may have been a complete bastard, but he was a meticulous bastard.  He kept files on everything.  Here,” Kitamori hands Bakura a stack of papers.  “You’ll find these useful.”

Bakura scans the files and raises an eyebrow at the witch.  She gives him one in return, “What?”

“Why are you being so helpful?”

“Aside from the fact that Green is giving me no choice?” Kitamori shakes her hand at him, showing off the rope circlet that hangs from her wrist, “I seriously doubt that you guys came all this way  _ just _ to break your people out of Department custody.  No, you’ve got ulterior motives.  And I’m helping because I think your endgame lines up with mine.”

Bakura regards her for a few seconds, watching as Kitamori flips through the folders, her mouth twitching as she read each title.   _ I like her _ , he thinks.   _ Shit _ .

“We’re good,” Atem says from behind them both, replacing the plaque on the wall.  She pulls her radio from her pocket.  “This is Atem, to Chopper One and Two.  Cassie, Meron, can you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Atem.  Good to hear from you,” comes Cassie’s voice, muffled slightly by the static.  “We’re going to land on the cliff.”

“Awesome,” Bakura says into his own radio.  “Tea, you there?”

Somewhere just over the horizon, Tea Gardner was sitting in the command tower of the  _ Cerulean _ , armed with a laptop and an internet connection.  Bakura imagines her smiling when she responds, “Hell yeah!  We’ve got a live satellite feed and missiles locked and loaded.  Tell us once you’re off, and we’ll fire.”

“We’ve just landed,” says Meron.

“Can anyone get in contact with the extraction team?” Comes the voice of Captain Almeida, “I can’t get a hold of Tadesse.”

And just then, an alarm goes off, bright red and screeching loud.  Kitamori looks up.

“Damn it!” She calls, grabbing hold of both Bakura and Atem.  She twists and Bakura catches the fleeting feeling of something squeezing him from all around before he is brought back to his senses.

She’s tried to disapparate, but they hadn’t moved.

“No!” Kitamori flings herself towards the door, pointing her wand at the lock.  “ _ Alohamora! _ ”

The door remains locked.

“Did you--” Bakura turns to Atem, but she shakes her head.

“There’s no way that I set off the alarm.  I cut the primary and the secondary at the same time,” she tells him.

“Doesn’t matter.  The island is in lockdown.  Pegasus would have ensured that this was the safest room in this building.  We can’t get out,” Kitamori sends a series of targeted blasting charms around the office.  Bakura watches them zip through the air and exploding at key points: corners, cracks in the floor, a sheet of stone that used to be a window.  None of it has any effect.

Bakura swallows, “Atem.  We need to stop this.”

“I know,” she closes her eyes.  “Take cover.  I’m going to overload everything.”

“What?” Kitamori tries to ask, but Bakura drags her underneath the desk.

“Get a shield around us.  Squat.  Head between your knees.  Cover your eyes and ears,” he orders her.  “And whatever you do, do not look up.”

There’s a spark from behind them and a tingling in Bakura’s skin.  He watches as Kitamori’s hair stands straight up and knows that his own is doing the same.  It’s all the warning that they get.  Bakura shoves Kitamori’s head down just as her shield goes up and the first bolt strikes the wall beside them.  Then a second and a third, and before long, there’s been too many to count.

The entire office smells like smoke and burnt rubber, the heat so intense that Bakura thinks he might pass out.  He’s so used to his own power, the quick, cold slashes of wind, both exact as a needle and blunt as a hammer depending on his need.  He’s forgotten the raw explosive power behind Atem, her divine control of natural lightning.  He’s forgotten how terrifying she could be.

When she lets up, there isn’t much left of Pegasus’s office.  The only thing that is not currently on fire is the files that Kitamori had shoved into Bakura’s arms.  The stone around them is pitch black and the wooden desk about them has been reduced to ash along with all the books and shelves that had lined the now non-existent back wall.  The ocean crashes against the cliff behind them

Atem stands in the middle of the floor untouched, electricity arching off of her arms and legs.  The wall to the hallway has been melted into a pile of black, hardening slime.

The alarm is off.  That’s probably the only good thing.

The hallway swarms with Unspeakables responding to the carnage.  Bakura leaps up, propelling himself forwards with a rush of air, and lands in the middle of it all.  He blasts them up into what remains of the ceiling, hearing bones shatter, before propelling them downwards and then flinging them out onto the cliff.

“How has the Department never heard of you two before?” Kitamori asks again, her voice lower than a whisper.

Bakura looks at her out of the corner of his eye, “They  _ have _ heard of us.”

“They just haven’t realized it yet,” Atem finishes.  “Now, let’s go see what triggered the alarm.”


	10. Ad Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nurnok shrugs, “In some ways, yes. In others, no. But it was the best choice that we had at the time. Pharaoh Seth, they won. They won a long time ago. What Luggus did ensured that, for the last four hundred years, my people have been been able to sleep safely with pockets full of gold. That is more than can be said about yours.”
> 
> “You never answered my question, though?”
> 
> “Oh,” Nurnok raises an eyebrow. “Which question was that again?”
> 
> “Why are you called ‘The Last’?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The iPad is owned by Apple Inc. FaceTime is owned by Apple Inc. 
> 
> Warning: Mentions of systematic genocide, theft, character death, misgendering, starvation, hallucination/memory loss, gore, and gun violence.

“Why ‘The Last’?” Seto asks, after Nurnok sends Kuirmet to find them some refreshments.  He sits in the chair sitting across the desk from the goblin queen.

Nurnok doesn’t answer him right away, instead making a vague clawing motion towards the wall.  The stone there shift and molds itself into a series of seats, enough for all of his companions.  As they make their way over, Seto makes a fist with his right hand and holds it over his heart in the traditional, silent goblin symbol of thanks.  Nurnok makes the corresponding action, a flick of her wrist starting from her temple.

“How much do you know about what happened to us after your death, Pharaoh Seth?” She asks, dark eyes unblinking.

“I know that the line of the Goldsinger lasted for thousands of years, strongly defending its traditions in magical stone and metal work,” Seto begins.  “I know that your ancestor Ragnuk fought beside King Arthur himself during the Battle of Camhalnn before being cut down by Salazar Slytherin after a duel that lasted for nearly an hour.  And I know that the last time we mages had any contact with the line of Lurtet was in 1612, when we allied ourselves one last time in the fight to strike against the wizarding Coalition of Sacred Brothers.”

Nurnok takes this information in stride, “I’d say that you know a lot of a man who’s been dead since the collapse of the Bronze Age, but then again… You remember your Cycle, don’t you?”

Seto raises an eyebrow, “You know of Cyclers, Your Majesty?”

Nurnok grins, all teeth and laugh lines, “It looks like I know something that you don’t, Great Pharaoh.  I’m pleasantly shocked.”  She hums, thinking it over, “I’ll give you this piece of information for free, then.  We all Cycle.  Only some are lucky enough to remember.”

A ripple of surprise makes its way around the room.  Seto does his best not to show any emotional reaction, but his mind is whirling.   _ Gods, it’s been so long since we’ve had magical contacts outside of our own people.  How much as magical theory advanced since the wizards went underground? _

Instead, he just makes the symbol of thanks once more.  Nurnok returns it.

“‘Only some of us’?” Seto parrots.  “So then, there’s been some other point in history that caused those caught up in it to remember?”  He thinks about it for a moment.  “The Battle at the Lake of Avalon.”

“Very good,” Nurnok smiles.  She pauses, her eyes seeming to unfocus for a moment.  When she comes back to reality, she looks at Serenity and says, “You were there.  Do you remember a goblin named Kurnoff?  He would have lived in the castle.”

“I do,” Serenity says softly, her smile sweet.  “He sang at the Yuletide feast each year.  He had a beautiful voice.”

Just then, Kuirmet comes back into the room with water and mulled apple cider.  He sets the glasses on the the table and asks Seto which he would like.

But before he can answer, Nurnok says, “Kurnoff--” And Serenity gasps, “It appears you have an old friend in our midsts.”

Kuirmet blinks up at the queen, who nods her head towards Serenity.  He looks at her and smiles so brightly, “Shaloena.  I didn’t recognize you.”

“Kurnoff,” she laughs.  “It’s so good to hear from you again.”

“And you, my lady,” the goblin takes his hand in his and presses her fingers to his mouth.

Seto’s not going to pry, but he thinks that those two have more of a history than is appropriate to discuss in the current company.  Serenity’s cycles have always been her own, barely spoken of outside of her immediate family.

“We’ll catch up later,” Kuirmet tells her, before releasing Serenity’s hand and bowing low to Nurnok.  She dismisses him before turning her gaze back to Seto.  Surprisingly, she offers him the sign of thanks this time.

He responds, but asks why.

“Kuirmet’s a good friend.  And he misses her.  A thousand years is a long time to wait,” she says wistfully.  “Now, where were we?  Ahh, yes.  The Coalition of Sacred Brothers.”

Nurnok straightens her back, “Before I say anything, I need you to know something.  Back then… we were fighting a war that we could not win.  Even you must have known that.”  Seto gives her a single blink of acknowledgement, something sinking in his gut.  “My ancestor, King Luggus, he is who you made your alliance with, was it not?”

“Yes.”

Nurnok shook her head, “Luggus had been in talks with wizarding command for weeks before you reached out to him.  But he needed something to hold over them, some form of leverage, because if he didn’t… well, we’d live, but we’d get the same deal that the elves settled for after Ravenclaw destroyed their connection to the earth.  Enslavement.  The bastardization of our magic.” She licks her lips, “Luggus did what he had to do.”

Seto tries to brace himself for what he knew was coming next, but even then, it feels like a physical blow.

“Luggus played you, played both sides.  And he won, in a way,” Nurnok tells him.  “He sent his own sons to carry out his mission because he could not ask any other goblin family to give up their own children.  They took from Isidore Greengrass what we needed.  But when it came time to escape, your mage,  Tomisław Brzozowski, discovered what they’d done and tried to bury the treasure in the inn with all of them inside.  Only Farnar, the youngest of the three, made it out alive.

“Luggus gave the wizards Brzozowski as a sign of good faith that we would not use what he stole from Greengrass.  And,” Nurnok gestures around her, “here we are.”

Seto takes a minute to compose himself, trying to wrap his mind around what he’d just been told.  He leans forwards, “Was it worth it?”

Nurnok shrugs, “In some ways, yes.  In others, no.  But it was the best choice that we had at the time.  Pharaoh Seth,  _ they won _ .  They won a long time ago.  What Luggus did ensured that, for the last four hundred years, my people have been been able to sleep safely with pockets full of gold.  That is more than can be said about yours.”

“You never answered my question, though?”

“Oh,” Nurnok raises an eyebrow.  “Which question was that again?”

“Why are you called ‘The Last’?”

Nurnok’s mouth tightens and she bites her bottom lip.   _ She’s hesitant _ , Seto thinks.   _ I’ve caught her off guard _ .

“Goblin magic is different from the magic of humans,” Seto continues.  “Whereas mage craft is soul based and wand craft is blood based, goblin magic comes from the hive-mind connection you all share to the line of Lurtet the Goldsinger, the mortal child of Maglubiyet, who was the divine first goblin.  As long as his blood remains on this earth, goblin-kind will flourish--”

“Stop,” Nurnok holds up a hand.  “Just stop.”

“If you truly are The Last--”

She cuts him off with a sharp look.  Seto gives her thirty seconds.

“You can’t prove it, can you?”

“Prove what?”

He sighs, “That they’re targeting your family.”

Nurnok snorts, “Oh, we can prove it.  It’s just that no one cares.  What gave it away?”

Seto rolls his eyes, “In order to get into this room, you have to pass through a series of hallways that have all been guarded with several very well concealed Death Knell spells, designed to kill all humans within their range at a drop of a hat.  You have placed yourself in a room constructed almost solely of stone that you have the power to control.  You have Kurnoff, the Scourge of Badon Hill, guarding your door and your husband, the Prince-Consort Srags, at the very gates of Gringotts.”

“You don’t know he’s my husband,” Nurnok says quickly.

“Unless goblin weddings have changed drastically in the last four hundred years, the fact that he carries a spear with your family’s crest on it means that I’m right,” Seto points out.  “And finally, the fact that I’m down here, talking to you, getting an audience with the Queen herself, means that you’re as desperate as I am right now.”

Nurnok lets out a very slow, very controlled breath.  When she finally speaks, she says, “Queen Allus.”

Seto makes a noise of confusion.

“My older sister.  She died in the vaults seven years ago.  She fell, the aurors told us,” Nurnok admits.  “Five years before her, our other sister, Ulnok, was bitten by a chimera we have on the lower levels.  Before her was my mother, and before her all her sisters and their mother.  And before her, her father and all her family.”  Nurnok swallows hard, “I am the third daughter of a third daughter, of a cadet branch of a cadet branch of the Line of Lurtet.  And until I have children of my own, I am The Last.  So yes, I am desperate.  Because Luggus’s treasure is the only thing keeping me alive right now.”  The goblin queen clears her throat, “But do not mistake my desperation for a need for your help.  I am speaking to you only out of respect for the old alliance we had between our peoples.  Unless you offer me something worth risking everything for, I will trap you and your companions in the lowest vault that we have and let you starve to death.”

“We can help you.”

“By doing what?”  Nurnok asks, “No offense, Pharaoh Seth, but unless you can prove to me that you’ve had a victory in the last century, there’s nothing you can offer me.”

The way she says it, though, sounds almost as if she  _ knows _ that Seth has something up his sleeve.   _ The children of Lurtet always did have Seer abilities. _

“Not true,” he says, confirming what he suspects Nurnok already knew, and slides a newspaper that Vivian had slipped into his pocket from a world away across the table.  Nurnok takes it and reads the front cover:  **MINISTER PALAMO TO ADDRESS CONFEDERATION REGARDING DANGERS WITHIN DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES**

“I heard about this… from our American branches.  I knew it wasn’t the Department, but… I didn’t realize...?” She says after a momentary pause.  Then she frowns.  “This is today’s paper.  Printed only an hour ago.  In  _ America _ .  How do you have this?”

Seto smirks and nods to the others.  Catherine stands up and moves forwards, placing an iPad on the table.

“Her name is Vivian Wong and even amongst us mages, she’s quite interesting,” Seto explains and calls up Wong’s profile on the iPad so that Nurnok can see her face.  “She has an ability so well integrated with modern technology that, had she been born a century ago, she probably wouldn’t have even been considered a mage.”

“This is… muggle technology,” Nurnok pokes at the iPad with her clawed fingers, her voice full of awe.  “How is it working in here?”

“Vivian is a technopath.  Amongst some of her other abilities, she is able to download herself onto the internet and email herself around the world, along with anything else she wants to take with her,” Seto explains.  “And right now, she and a friend of ours is inside the Department of Mysteries Archive in Philadelphia.”

“That’s impossible,” Nurnok looks up.  “There’s no muggle wires down there.”

“Except there are,” Serenity pipes up, rising to her feet and leaning on her cane.  “I sensed them in the walls when I was down there during our first break in.  We didn’t know it until we were actually inside the building, otherwise we would have called upon her back then.”

“ _ How _ ?” Nurnok glances between the iPad and Seto.  Then she realizes how, muttering in the riddles that Seers often speak in, “The Mage of Muggles dances in the walls of The City Built in the Maze, aided by the Guardian… The Dragon King makes a promise he can keep… A lost treasure is returned…”

“The American Ministry of Magic currently resides in Philadelphia's abandoned underground pathway system, a project that was apparently scrapped by City Hall halfway through it’s completion,” Catherine explains, relaying information that the Jackals had gathered over months of research.  “Wizards took over the final half and, a couple months later, open up their Ministry to the public.”

“Except,” Mai says, “they took over  _ after _ the power lines went in.  And Vivian can travel through those just as well as the internet.  She perfected it with the help of a Spellcaster friend of ours.”

The iPad lights up as Vivian FaceTimes them.

“Oh, wow, hi!” Vivian’s voice comes through the speakers.  Seto can’t see her face, but he can see Nurnok’s.  She looks absolutely dumbfounded.

“You’re in Philadelphia.  You’re in this box, but you’re in Philadelphia,” Nurnok mutters.  

“It’s not a… You know what, never mind,” Vivian pauses and Seto imagines that she’s turning the iPad to face the shelves and shelves of artifacts that the Department has hidden down there.  “See anything that’s yours?”

There’s also the sound of someone getting choked into unconsciousness so Seto pictures Rafael with his hand around an Unspeakable’s throat.

Nurnok covers her mouth with her hand, eyes shining bright, “That’s… This is…”

“We return to you the creations of your people, the ones that have been stolen by men and women who have no regard for your laws,” Seto asks, but Nurnok doesn’t seem to hear him.

Very quietly, she says, “On the left side, halfway up the shelf.  There’s a ring.”

“Uh… yeah, I see it.  Raf, can you--”

There’s a grunt and, a few seconds later, a thud.  Rafael’s voice asks, “This one?”

“Yes,” Nurnok nods.

“Okay,” Vivian says.  “It might take about a minute.  The connection in here is shit.”

Except, when the email comes through a moment later and Seto shows Nurnok how to download the attachment, there is no word in the English language to describe the look on her face when she holds the tiny circle of gold and says, “King Ragnuk the First gave this to his wife during their wedding.  It’s said that he wove so many protective enchantments into the metal that she once went into battle wearing nothing but her night shirt and received not a single wound.”

Seto understands why Nurnok chose this one first, out of all the goblin made artifacts in the Archives.  She was terrified for her own life and for the lives of her people.  A ring that would make her practically invulnerable would be godsent.

“Is there anything else?” Vivian asks as Nurnok slips the band onto her forefinger.

Nurnok looks up at Seto, “It won’t be enough.  No matter what you have down there, if the Department decides to come after us in force--”

“I know,” he says, licking his lips.  “This is an act of good faith, nothing more.  If you want to walk away from me now, Vivian will still send you whatever it is that you want from their vaults.”

“If this is your act of good faith, then what are you going to promise me in exchange for my help?  Because I’d rather not dance around that question any longer,” Nurnok responds.

Seto reaches into his pocket and pulls out two vials.  He holds them out to the Queen, who takes them with wide eyes and shaking hands.

“Is this… what I think it is?” She asks, her voice quivering.  Seto nods.  Nurnok gasps, “Gold blood.”

“They’re here.  They’re alive,” Seto says.

“Only two, though?” Nurnok stops him quick.

Seto relents, “Only two.  But two is going to be enough to take down the Department.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Nurnok says.

“Actually we do,” Serenity interrupts.  “They’re doing it as we speak.”

“What?!” Nurnok stands up from her chair, “You’ve declared  _ war _ \--”

“No.  They did,” Seto tells her, his voice low and dangerous.  “The Department of Mysteries attacked our home.  We are retaliating.”

“Your  _ home _ ?”

“San Francisco,” he answers.  “Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t know things.”

“You have a city?”  Nurnok implores.

“We took a city from them and no one knows,” Seto confirms.  “We have people inside the walls of the American Ministry of Magic, the most heavily guarded government in the wizarding world, for the second time in a month and no one knows.  We have the name and locations of every wizard born mage in the entire world and no one knows.  We have people landing on the beaches of the Department’s headquarters right now and no one knows.  We have five people inside of Gringotts bank in wizarding Britain and no one knows.”

“The Department of Mysteries isn’t the force that it used to be,” Mai says.  “They’re stealing wizarding children to fill their ranks.  The mage conversion program is a fraud because they have no money.  People inside their own forces are turning on them,” and while that last one is an exaggeration, the rest of it is true.

Seto continues, “They cover up what we have taken from them because they are weak and bogged down in red tape and they can’t let the public know that  _ we are winning _ .  So tell me: what did you see in the vision you seem to be talking about?"

Nurnok stares at Seto for a good, long while before answering.  “An alliance is forged as the Mage of Muggles dances in the walls of The City Built within a Maze, aided by the Guardian.  A War is put to rest on an island with no name.  The Dragon King makes a promise he can keep, offering the Final Queen a lost treasure to be returned.  The God Beyond the Rip returns, the Truth is Learned, and the Secret Keeper keeps the secret no longer.  The Three Kings stall return where lands meets water.  Sand shall turn to clay, then back to flesh, and blood shall run gold as the Destroyer meets his maker at the hands of mortal magic.”

Nurnok glances down at the gold blood in her hands, shifting the vials around with her long spidery fingers.   “Pharaoh Seth, hypothetically, in return for two vials of mythical golden blood, what exactly would the support of the goblin race look like?”

“As Queen, I assume you have access to any bank account within the Gringotts organization,” Seto says.

Nurnok nods and waits for him to continue.

“I need to make a withdrawal,” he answers.

Nurnok raises an eyebrow, “Out of which account?”

Seto smiles and tells her, “All of them.”

* * *

 

A noise rowses Kisha from her sleep.  At first she thinks it’s Royce again, except it’s far too quiet.  And there’s certainly no Morgan snippering in the background.

It’s a whisper from someone near the main entranceway.  Kisha shakes Delphia awake and together they wait for whoever is coming to take them again.

“God, this place is a morgue,” whispers one of the voices.  “Where the fuck is everyone?”

Kisha frowns.  She feels like she’s heard that voice before.

“Dunno, dude,” comes another and there’s the sound of soft footfalls before they come into view.

Kisha’s stomach drops, “It’s you.”

It’s the Asian kid with the muggle tattoos, one of the ones from the shop that had come in that cloudy Thursday.  One of the ones that the Unspeakables have been desperately tearing her mind apart for any scrap of information.  He’s dressed in green clothing with a thick black vest strapped to his chest.  His hair is covered by a cap and, in his inked up hands, a long muggle gun.

_ The mages _ , she realizes.   _ Oh my god, they’re mages. _

“Oh my god,” the kid says when he looks at her.  He lowers the gun and lets it hang from a strap around his shoulder.  He grasped the bars of her cell, “You’re from the clothing shop.”

“Wait, I know you,” Royce appears to have woken up and he’s pointing at the blond guy behind the Asian kid.  “You were the waiter.   _ You stole my wand _ .”

“What are they doing here?” The Asian kid asks his friend.

“They don’t… They’d know what we looked like, but…” the blond guy says.  He’s carrying a smaller gun than the Asian kid in one hand, gloved except for his fingertips.  In the other, he’s tapping uselessly at a piece of unuseable muggle technology.  “I mean, they could have gotten that information from anywhere.  Why take them?”

“Unless…” the Asian kid blinks and just stares at Kisha from beyond the bars.  “The idea of the whole attack thing was to scare them, show them that we could strike back.  The last time we did something like that, wizards freaked out so badly that they went completely underground.  So--”

“So they kidnapped their own people?  Put them in jail?  Tortured them?” Blond Guy frowns.  “That’s… What the actual  _ fuck _ ?”

“We scared them.  We  _ scare _ them,” Asian Kid sounds like he can’t believe his own words.  He won’t stop staring at Kisha.

She swallows and breaks eye contact, looking behind her at Delphia.  The older woman isn’t doing too well; she’s been so dizzy that she can barely stand up and, last night, Delphia had become convinced that Kisha was her daughter, then her granddaughter, before finally forgetting who she was entirely.

_ She’s dying _ , Kisha thinks desperately, looking back towards Asian Kid, who can’t be much older than her.  She makes a decision that she hopes she won’t come to regret.

“What do I have to do to convince you to let us out of here?” Kisha asks, keeping her voice as steady as possible.  Her mind is coming up with a million and one things that Asian Kid and Blond Guy could make her do, but if it gets them out, if it gets Delphia some god damn water, she’ll do whatever they ask.

Except, the way that Asian Kid looks away nervously when she says it makes her think that, perhaps, maybe he’s the one she should be trusting in this good-auror-bad-auror situation.

“What the hell are you doing, girl?” Shouts Morgan Sammons, who can honestly take his pride go and fuck himself with it because there is literally no other option right now.  She doesn’t need him judging her.  She continues staring Asian Kid down, waiting for him to return eye contact again.  When he glances up at her, she can see him swallow hard, the apple in his neck bobbing with uncertainty.

“Jono…” He whispers, addressing his companion, whose glancing around the cells like he’s trying to decide what to do.

They’re interrupted by the sound of footsteps.  Asian Kid and Blond Guy (who’s named Jono?  Like the hero of legend?) turn, but make no reaction as the newcomers come into the prison, which means that they’re allies.  Kisha comes up to the bars and sees a bunch of ragtag  _ kids _ come into view.

“Tadesse,” Asian Kid nods towards a  _ huge _ black man, the only person who looks like an adult in the group.  Beside him is a spindle thin boy with slightly lighter skin, similar to hers, and zits on his chin that Asian kid addresses as, “Lee.”

“Devlin,” Lee says back, grinning and revealing crooked teeth, with an accent straight out of Jamaica.  He glances at the cages and the easy grin slips from his face, “These ain’t your people?”

“No,” Jono the Blond Guy says, eyes down.  More people are coming around the corner.  Kisha thinks that she’s losing her only chance of escape.

“Then let’s go.  They should be around here somewhere,” Tadesse says, his voice as deep as he is tall.

Kisha launches herself at the bars, wrapping her fingers around the bars, brushing them against Asian Kid (Devlin.  She finally has a name for him).  Devlin looks back at her, startled.

“Please,” she tries again.  “Please.  If you won’t take me, then take Delphia.  She’s sick.  They haven’t come down to feed us in forever.  I think they’re just trying to let us starve.   _ Please, just help her _ .  I’ll do whatever you want.”

“We need to leave,” Tadesse says again.  “They’re not what we came here for.  They’ll just slow us down.”

“They aren’t what we came here for,” Jono agrees and Kisha’s heart sinks.  Except, the guy keeps talking, “But returning them to their governments would be good leverage.”

Lee makes a noise of confusion, “I thought you had people working on that already?”

“Well, it never hurts to have a plan B,” Jono shrugs.  Kisha just barely catches him making eye contact with Devlin and realizes that he’s literally pulling an excuse out of his ass right now, “Can you get these doors open?”

Lee shrugs, “For the record, I think this is stupid.  But the Captain says you’re in charge, and I ain’t gonna lose another ear for pissing her off.”

Kisha notices Lee’s lack of right ear as Tadesse grunts in acknowledgement.

By now, Morgan and Royce are looking on from their cell across the hall, paying attention in a way that they hadn’t before.  There’s a hope in their eyes for the first time in a while.

“There’s aren’t any keys.  The locks are shut with magic,” Royce says.

“So they’ll open with magic,” Lee says, pulling out his own wand.  Kisha watches with wide eyes as he approaches Royce’s cage, eying the lock.  “You cause me trouble and you’re dead, you here?”

“You’re a wizard...” Morgan says dumbly, sounding exactly like how Kisha feels.  Of all the things she expected, it wasn’t for mages to have have wizarding allies.

Lee isn’t listening.  He’s analyzing the lock, muttering something in a language that Kisha vaguely recognizes as Patois, from the years that she heard her grandmother doing the same thing.

“What are you doing?  Just unlock the door!” Morgan shouts, his voice cracking in desperation.  He looks across the way at Kisha, as if she can do anything about his situation, as if she actually wants to get him and his racist garbage out of here.

“Bother me again and I will leave you in here,” Lee doesn’t even look at Morgan when he answers.  He frowns, tapping the lock a couple of times with his finger and listening to the sounds it lets off.  He puts his wand away.  Instead, he reaches for the knife on his belt, sliding the blade into the keyhole.  There’s a spark and a flash as the spell surrounding the lock is broken and the door swings open.

“Thank you!  Thank you!” Royce cries, practically running out of the cage, but is stopped by Jono, who pulls his gun on him, raising it so that the barrel is in line with his forehead.

“We’re not doing this for you,” Jono says as Lee moves to Ellen Messer’s cage.  She jerks awake and clambers towards the back corner of her cell.  “Where are the other prisoners kept?”

“I-- I don’t know, I swear.  You gotta believe me,” Royce stammers.  “If I knew, my… my friend, Shawn, he might be down there, but I don’t know…”

Lee gets Messer’s door open, rolling her eyes when she screams, refusing to move.  He flicks of his wand and she’s dragged out like there’s an invisible rope pulling on her ankles.  Lee comes over to Kisha’s door.

“Wait,” Kisha calls, looking at Devlin.  She points through the bars at the unresponsive Unspeakable laying on his back in the cell beside Royce and Morgan’s.  He’s awake, but has barely even twitched since the mages came in.  Kisha honestly thinks he might be broken.  “Him!  His name is Keith and he used to work here.  He might know.”

Devlin glances over at the cage containing Keith, but it’s Tadesse that approaches the bars.  The huge man takes one look at the Unspeakable inside and, before anyone can stop him, blasts the lock open with his wand.

An alarm, shirl and constant, blares around them.

“What the actual  _ fuck?! _ ” Lee shouts as the door to Kisha’s cage swings open.  “Why the fuck do you think I’m picking the fucking locks?!  They’ve got curses on them, you fucking idiot!”

“You were taking too long,” Tadesse growls, turning his back on Keith for just a second.  It’s the second mistake made that evening.

Keith springs forward, apparently not as comatose as he’d led them to believe, stealing Tadesse’s wand from his hand.  But Tadesse reach is so long that he just grabs Keith by the neck, slamming him into the ground.  He probably would have chicked the Unspeakable to death had more footsteps not sounded out from the hallway entrance.

“Take cover!” Devlin shouts and pushes Kisha back into her cell just in time to avoid being shot by the flashes of green lights and the calls of  _ Avada Kedavra _ coming from the Unspeakables down the hall.  Jono and a couple more of the mage supporters clamber in next to her and Delphia, while Tadesse dives into Keith’s old cell, dragging the Unspeakable with him.  Kisha sees Royce Land cowering in his former prison across the way, his hands covering his mouth and tears streaming down his face.

Kisha follows his gaze and sees Morgan Sammons and Ellen Messer lying dead on the ground, their eyes wide and faces curled in shock.  Beside them lies the body of Lee, half fallen against the cell door that he’d just tried to open.

_ Oh Merlin, _ she prays.   _ Please, please, I just want to make it out alive! _

Kisha watches as Tadesse throws a curse blindly over his shoulder, having taken his wand back from Keith, who actually seems to be out cold this time.  Jono fires his gun in short bursts while trying to look around the corner.  A killing curse crashes into the wall just beside his head, spraying them with debris.

Delphia clutches Kisha’s arm so hard that she might break Kisha’s skin with her nails, now long and chipped from their extended captivity.  Kisha looks to Devlin in the hopes that he might be able to do something.

“Their aiming high, not low,” Devlin comments, his voice almost a whisper.  “They always do that.”

Kisha nods, repeating the lesson that her old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher used to drill into their heads, “Curses usually work best when connecting to the heart or brain, so you usually aim for the chest or just above it.”

“Really?  That’s why?” Devlin questions, raising his eyebrow at her, “Huh… Always just assumed it was because center mass is the bigger target…”  He pulls a thick, stubby tube from one of his many pockets and moves in front of Jono, so that he is closest to the hallway, “Cover your eyes and ears, okay?  This thing’s gonna be loud.”

“What are you doing?” Kisha yells as Devlin pulls the pin attached to the top of the tube.

“Saving our asses,” he shouts back and rolls the tube down the floor of the hall.  Kisha hears it clunk on the stone tiles three times before she follows Jono, Devlin, and the rest of the mage supporters in closing her eyes and ears.

The bang the tube makes is so loud that it she can hear it loud and clear through the shouts of the Unspeakables caught in it’s way, the flash so bright she can see it behind her eyelids.  It leaves her disoriented and confused, and when she tries to open her eyes, all she can see are blurry shapes moving in and out of her vision.  There’s an intense ringing in her ears that deadens every other sound in the room, until it clears suddenly and Kisha drags herself around the corner to see Devlin disarming an Unspeakable with his bare hands before moving to strike him in the throat.

Devlin moves like a blur, throwing fast kicks and punches, bouncing from one target to the next without pausing for breath.  From far away, the Unspeakables had felt like this impossible force that they could never beat, but with Devlin up close, they fell to the ground like flies.

When the final witch falls, Devlin calls, “All clear,” and Kisha rises to her feet, staring at him with awe.  Because she’s never seen someone do anything like that before, except inside the muggle books that she read, pilfered from Ana Parks’ collection at Salem.  

The alarm is still blaring overhead.

“We have to go,” Jono declares, rising to his feet.  “Did we find out where the other prisoners are being held?”

“This one’s got a map of the facility.  Must be a new guy, or something?” Devlin says as he pilfers a piece of parchment from one of the downed Unspeakables’ pockets.  “Says there’s another detention facility three floors beneath us.”

Kisha lets them talk to each other and runs towards Royce, pulling him to his feet and dragging him around Morgan’s corpse.  Delphia, looking a little dazed, stubbles over to where they are.

“We have to go with them.  It’s our best chance,” Kisha says, her voice as soft as she can make it.  Her heart is still pounding against her ribcage, so hard she thinks that it might break bone.  Delphia nods, slowly and stiffly, while Royce makes a noise that Kisha takes for agreement.

When she turns back to the hallway, she sees Tadesse moving over to where Lee had fallen.  He kneels down, placing one massive hand on the top of his head, and mutters a prayer under his breath.

“Was he your friend?” Royce asks him.

Tadesse stands, “He was my daughter’s boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry,” Royce manages to force out, unable to come up with anything else to say.

Tadesse levels them with a stare, “You better be fucking worth it.  Or I’ll snap your necks myself.”  He turns, calling out to the group.  “More will be coming soon.  Circle up.  We’ll blast our way through.”

The large man turns his wand on the floor itself and barks, “ _ Reducto _ !”

The tiles shatters, crumbling down onto the lower levels, leaving behind a wide open space for them to jump down into.

“Wait…” Comes a voice from behind them.  Keith is waking up behind them.  “Wait…” He tries to lurch to his feet, but can’t seem to stand straight.  Tadesse’s hit must have really hurt.

Beside Kisha, Devlin eyes widen, his body going stiff.

“ _ You… _ ” He spits out and Kisha realizes that he somehow  _ recognizes _ Keith the Unspeakable.  “You fucking bastard!”

It takes the combined effort of Jono and Tadesse to hold him back, to drag him back towards the hole.

“Duke!  The  _ fuck _ , man!  This isn’t the time--” Jono shouts, but he’s barely heard over Devlin’s screaming.

“Her name was  _ Lindsey _ , you fucker-- Joey, let me go!  I’ll kill him!  I’ll kill him!”

“Lindsey?  Who the fuck is Lindsey?” Keith asks, sounding concussed.

“She was my sister!  And you killed her!  I hate you!  I hate--”

Keith’s eyes widen, “Wait… oh…”

“I remember you!  I remember-- I’ll kill you!  You killed Lindsey”

“Lindsey Devlin.  The girl from Oklahoma…” Keith whispers.  “She wore a Katy Perry t-shirt…”  Then, Keith frowns.  “But, she had a sister…”

“I’m her  _ brother _ !” Devlin shouts and finally manages to squirm his way out of Jono (Joey’s?) hold.  He leaps forwards before anyone can stop him, grabbing Keith by the collar and punching him in the jaw, sending the older man crashing to the ground.  “She was  _ good! _  She was kind!  She was my sister and you killed her!”

Devlin straddles Keith, hitting him repeatedly with his fists, his knuckles coming away bloody.  Kisha doesn’t know what comes over her, but she rushes over and wraps her arms around her torso, pulling him away from the broken Unspeakable.

“Please, please!” She keeps saying.  “Please!”

Devlin wretches free and pulls his gun out of it’s holster, pointing it at Keith.  The Unspeakable laughs.

“Fucking do it,” Keith says around bloody teeth.  He’s smiling,  “Just… take me out of my fucking misery.”

Devlin is shaking so badly that Kisha can hear the gun rattle in his hands.  He spits, “ _ I hate you _ .”

And, before she can do anything to stop him, Devlin pulls the trigger.


	11. Recrudescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And that's when he realizes that everything up to this point has been for nothing.
> 
> I'm scared. Oh god, I don't want to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The Abbey Stadium is owned by the Grosvenor Group. 
> 
> Warning: Mentions of dysphoria, transphobia, physical and emotional abuse, child abuse, panic attacks, past character death, genocide, gore, blood, gun violence, homophobic slang, drowning, suicidal inclinations, major character death, and unintentional misgendering of a closeted character.

The Zabini's are quite possibly the strangest family that Amane has ever met. Living in the middle of a quant muggle suburb, they made their home in a small three bedroom flat just outside of Cambridge's downtown core.

"Mum likes football. There's a stadium around the corner," Blaise tells her when she raises an eyebrow at him.

"It's the muggle in me. Frankly, it's far more exciting than watching people try to knock each other off their brooms," Mrs. Zabini says as she shrugs off her coat, hanging it on the hook by the door. "Now," she turns and looks at Amane, who feels so incredibly out of place that she's surprised that she hasn't managed to squirm out of her skin. "Let me see you, child."

Mrs. Zabini sits Amane on a kitchen chair, pulling out her wand as she moves gracefully around the open space. She magically sets the kettle to boil before approaching Amane herself, "Roll up your sleeves."

Amane hesitates, not wanting to show them. But in the end, she relents, exposing the purpling bruises that her father left when he grabbed her arm at the bank.

Blaise lets out a hiss when he sees them, his mother's eyes growing cold.

"My first husband left me with marks like these," Mrs. Zabini tells her, waving her wand over the bruises. Amane watches as they turn green, then yellow, and then finally disappear entirely. "I was glad when dragon pox took him. Merlin knows that I never would have had the courage to leave him back then."

"Thank you," Amane whispers as the tea kettle lets out a screech. Blaise picks it up off the burner and retrieves three large mugs from a cupboard.

"It's no problem," Mrs. Zabini smiles. Blaise pushes one of the mugs into her hands. It's chamomile, with a drop of honey. The tea is too hot when she tries to drink, but she swallows it anyways, taking another sip. "I'm going to go and set up the guest room. You two stay here and talk. It's not often that you get to know your intended before the wedding." Before Amane can get a word out, Mrs. Zabini turns to Blaise and sternly points her finger at him. "Be nice."

"Mother," Blaise says, clearly annoyed.

"I mean it," she snaps, disappearing behind the door to what Amane assumes is the guest room.

They sit in awkward silence for a few minutes, quietly sipping tea and trying not to make eye contact. Amane wonders if it's supposed to be some sort of competition, like,  _who will be the first to crack_? It's probably going to be her, because she's desperate for answers to the million questions inside her head. Mentally, she sighs, and prepares herself for Blaise to smirk or laugh at her when-

"How long has he been hurting you?"

Amane's mouth clicks shut and she snaps her head towards him. Blaise isn't looking at her at all, instead staring blankly at the tea in his mug. His fingers as clasped tightly around the outside and his jaw is clenched.

Amane glances down at her own mug, shrugging, "I can't really remember. It's always been like that." She swallows hard, "My… My brother, he used to say that there was… a time when my parents were happy. But… um… after, well, after my father found out that Ryou was… that he was…"

"A mage," Blaise supplies for her. Like he knows a damn thing.

"Yeah, a mage," she snaps. "Got a problem?"

Blaise continues to stare at his mug. He takes a sip, sets it down, and makes some kind of non-committal noise.

"But he hurt  _you_? Because of your brother?" Blaise asks.

"Why do you even care?" Amane growls, standing up from her chair, fists clenched at her side. When Blaise opens her mouth, she doesn't even let him speak, "And if you tell me that it's because we're engaged again, I'll hit you."

Blaise sneaks a glance at her before dropping his gaze back to his mug. He mumbles something.

"What?"

"I said, my mum wants a girl in the family."

Amane frowns, "What's that got to do with anything?"

" _I don't know_!" Blaise barks at her, almost defensive, almost like it hurt for some reason. "She just does, okay?"

"That's stupid," Amane says, her hands on her hips.

"I know that," Blaise can't even look at her. He sounds so angry, like he's blaming her for something.

"Do you have a problem with girls?" Amane asks.

"No."

"Do you have a problem with me being a girl?" She asks again, suddenly thinking back to Ryou's confession all those years ago.  _I think I like boys, too. Do you still love me?_

"No," Blaise says firmly, then hesitates, and then continues. "I don't have a problem with you being a girl."

Amane is so confused. She sits back in her seat, "So I'm here because your mom wants a girl?"

"Yeah," Blaise says bluntly, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

"If she wants one so badly, why didn't she just have another kid? She's had what? Ten different husbands?"

"Seven," Blaise corrects her. "And… I just don't know, alright? Can you stop asking?"

"Fine," Amane resumes her staring at her mug. She keeps looking over at him, though, waiting until the tension drained from his shoulders. "Why did you help me?"

"I just told you-"

"No, you said why your mother wanted to help me. Why did  _you_?"

Blaise snorts, "What? Am I not allowed to help a pretty girl in distress?"

"I'm not pretty," Amane counters.

"Prettier than most," Blaise shrugs. "Maybe I just wanted to know why."

"Why what?"

"Why you. Mum could have picked any girl, but she wanted me to marry you," Blaise looks her over. Amane curls her feet under the hem of her dress. "I wanted to know why. Why were you at Gringotts anyways? Especially if you knew your father would hurt you for trying to run."

"A lady goblin gave me some kind of prophecy. I wanted to talk with her again," Amane says, seriously doubting that Blaise will believe her.

Except, Blaise looks at her with wide eyes and a shocked expression. He leans in, "Are you kidding me?"

Amane shrugs and lets him come to whatever conclusion he wants.

"An actual, real-life prophecy? From a  _goblin_?" Blaise exclaims, "What'd she say?"

"I don't know. Something about finding a Secret Keeper called the Daughter of Avalon and a god. She said I had to learn the truth, whatever that means," Amane kicks her feet against the legs of the chair. "I didn't really understand it. She kept speaking in riddles."

"Seers tend to do that, I hear," Blaise says under his breath.

"What do you think it means?" Amane asks him.

"Could mean anything. Could mean nothing," Blaise shrugs and finishes his tea. "The real question is, why did some lady goblin go out of her way to talk to  _you_? I didn't even know that they had women at Gringotts."

"Apparently, they all work in the back," Amane remembers what Nurnok told her.

"Did she say anything else?" Blaise asks.

Amane closes her and tries to remember, "She mentioned a building with blood in its walls and death in the land around it. But in the earth, it has a secret powerful enough to topple everything."

"And the Secret Keeper, this Daughter of Albion, knows about this?" Blaise asks.

"Apparently."

"Well then," Blaise smirks. "You just got significantly more interesting, Amane Andrews."

Amane rolls her eyes, " _More_  interesting? So you thought I was interesting before?"

"You've got a mage brother, don't you? That's got to be interesting enough."

Amane feels her fingers go numb first, then the buzzing in her head. She can't seem to catch her breath. She feels Ryou above her, his lips pressing into her, as he slots himself between her thighs.

_You're all I've got left_ , he'd said as he kissed her. She doesn't think that she'd wanted it.

"Hey, hey! Are you alright?" Blaise brings her back to reality, a hand on her shoulder. It's the first time he's ever touched her before.  _He's warm_ , she thinks.

"Fine. I- I'm fine," she says, reaching for her mug, trying to force some of the tea down. There are tears in her eyes.

"Hey, no. Don't-" Blaise gently pulls the mug from her grasp. "You'll choke."

"I'm fine," she lies again.

"You're not," he says, placing the mug on the table beside his own. "Is it… because I mentioned your brother? Look, I'm sorry. But after what happened… I mean, he attacked all those people. Maybe it was best that they sent him away-"

"They don't send mages  _away_. They kill them. Ryou's dead."

"They  _what_?" Blaise whispers.

"If a wizard-born mages doesn't complete the conversion program, the Department of Mysteries kills them. There's no camp. There's no- he's dead, alright? They killed my brother," she cries as tears roll down her cheeks. "Ryou… he did it on purpose, so that they'd have to. Because what they were doing to him was killing him so he- he just- he wanted to die so badly and I wasn't enough of a reason to stick around."

Blaise stares at her like he can't believe what's coming out of her mouth, "You couldn't have known."

"My father knew. He works for them - the Department - sometimes. So that he can publish his books. He knew what would happen to Ryou if he didn't do well," Amane says through the tears. "I… I hate him… so much…"

Blaise grabs her by the shoulder and pulls her into a bone crushing hug. Amane weeps openly into his collar, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt.

The door to the guest room opens up and Mrs. Zabini comes out, her forehead pinched in frustration, "Blaise, I thought I told you to be nice?"

"I am," he tells her, rubbing a comforting hand up and down Amane's back. "I trying to be."

* * *

"Fuck.  _Fuck_!" He swears, shredding his jacket into long strips to cloth that he uses to wrap around the bullet wound in his knee. The bone is shattered. Unless he gets to a healer soon, he might never be able to walk on it again.

Keith has no idea why he's alive.

"Fucking cocksucking  _shit_ ," he gasps as he tightens the makeshift bandage, hoping to cut off the bleeding. "Damn it, why didn't he just fucking shoot me?"

The Devlin boy (girl? Like, the kid looked like a man, but Keith vividly remembers that Lindsay Devlin had had a muggle sister. But who even  _knows_  anymore?) at pulled the barrel of his gun away from Keith's head at the last moment and aimed it at his knee, firing point blank into the joint. Keith barely remembers what happened afterwards, nearly blind from the pain.

But Devlin had grabbed his face and forced Keith to look at him, his eyes pits of righteous fury.

"You want me to kill you, you sick bastard? You want that? You're not good enough for that," and with that, he'd pushed Keith away, smacking the back of his head against the stone of his cell. "When Atem and Bakura tear this island down around your head, I hope you fucking  _drown_."

Devlin and the crew that he'd come with had disappeared some time after that; Keith doesn't exactly know when. Once he has the bleeding in his leg under control, he hauls himself towards the door of his cage.

It's locked. Devlin must have done that before he left. Keith stares at the hinges, grits his teeth, and thinks,  _Fuck it. Fuck_ you _._

He's not dying here. After everything that he's learned, everything that Pegasus unlocked from beyond that mental block, he's not going to go out on the floor of a cell on some godforsaken rock. Keith thinks of Ryou, who'd used his last moments on this earth to push through a squad of Unspeakables and a wall several feet thick in order to see the moonlight one more time. To stand tall and proud and tell Keith that there was nothing to fix about who he was.

Thief King Bakura had ripped Ryou Andrews from the earth. Keith may die trying to kill that  _thing_  that used to live inside the Ring, but he's going to take the bastard down with him.

Devlin couldn't have locked the cell door with magic. Everything that they'd known about the kid had said that he was a muggle and Keith hadn't seen him use a wand (though he had allies that did and,  _damn_ , didn't that scare the shit out of Keith) or any kind of magic aside from whatever had turned him into a guy. There are no keys, but Keith isn't going to let that stop him.

The doors on this level are shit and for the first time in his life, he thanks Merlin for the Department's neglect of its infrastructure. He pulls on each the base of the bars; the third one in moving just slightly in his grasp. Keith kicks with all the desperate force that he can manage with his one good leg, keeps kicking until the entire bar comes loose, falling to the floor with a clang.

Keith squeezes himself through the two bars, hissing in pain as his knee catches against the harsh, unforgiving metal. He falls to the floor and crawls his way over to the cell door that once held Kisha Borrego and Delphia Caro.

Still slumped against the open door is the body of the wizard everyone had called Lee. Keith pushes him over so that he can see the boy's face. His eyes are open, eternally frozen in their wide eyed shock at his own death. Lee had been young, no more than twenty five.

_It's longer than Ryou ever got to live,_  Keith brain supplies spitfully. And then, after he remembers the Spirit of the Millennium Ring tapping out his age against a wooden bench, he thinks,  _It's longer than most people ever got, too_.

_Fuck you_ , he thinks right back.

He steals Lee's wand. It's not going to work properly for him, as he never beat its previous owner, but it's the best that Keith can do right now. He also takes Lee's knife, which has been charmed to open up any lock, to undo any knot or hold. There's knives like these all over the world and they're a thorn in the side of aurors everywhere, never leaving a trace.

Keith figures that it will be useful as a makeshift weapon, at the very least.

As Keith pushes himself away, Lee's body shifts again and his wallet falls out of a pocket in his jacket. Keith opens it up, seeing a few notes of muggle money from different countries, and nearly puts it back when a picture falls out.

The people in the photo move, but only slightly, as if it had been developed by an amateur. In it, a slightly younger version of Lee sits at the bedside of a tall, black girl, holding her hand and staring in wonder at the bundle of blankets that the woman holds.

Keith can't see it clearly enough, but he knows that Lee had been a father.

He swallows hard and puts the photo back in the wallet, sliding the whole thing back into Lee's pocket. His vision swims and-

_He's trapped behind a wall of crystal, his hands withering before his very eyes. He shouts, but nothing comes out, his voice aged so much that his vocal cords have frayed._

_The figure on the other side of the wall approaches him and he calls out for her, trying to plead for his release. But she merely taps her wands against the glass and mutters something under her breath._

_He cycles backwards, the age spots on his skin disappearing, his body becoming younger and younger, until loses his awareness, his very consciousness, before speaking forwards to the brink of death._

_He reaches out towards the woman again as the other body - his_ brother _, his mind supplies - in the bell jar does the same._

" _Mother," he tries to say, looking out at the woman with dark hair and dark eyes. "Mother."_

-Keith jerks away, flinging himself backwards from Lee's body.

"What the fuck?" He whispers hoarsely. "What was- what's going on?"

He knows that when Pegasus turned the Millennium Eye on him and Tilla, the man knocked something loose in his brain, tore down a mental shield that the Department had put up to hide the fact that  _everything he thought he knew was fake_.

Keith thinks of his mother, his brother and sister, his step-father and realizes that, for as often as he thinks of them, he can't recall their names.

He wants to throw up. He wants to hit something.

But the memory that just surfaced, that hadn't been part of his training to become an Unspeakable - Keith might not be one hundred percent certain about a lot of things right now, but he knows that for certain. It had been from… before.

_I called her mother_ , Keith thinks, feeling violently ill.  _What the actually hell?_

He has to keep moving. If he stays here any longer, there's no telling what will happen.

The mages (and their wizarding and muggle allies, Keith  _literally_ can't get over that fact) had blown a hole in the floor, disappearing into the lower levels. The prisoners from their attack on San Francisco are down there. Thankfully, the huge guy who busted open Keith's cell decided to make a ramp out of the fallen rubble, so he's not going to have to jump down and jar his already screaming leg.

It hurts like a motherfucker anyways. Keith honestly wants to just sit down and quit, but doesn't because he's got a goddamn job to do.

The cells down here are empty. Keith assumes that Devlin, Wheeler, and their crew must have busted them all out. He limps down the hallways, leaning against the wall when the edges of his vision darken. The bandage around his knee is soaked red; he needs to change it.

Keith trips and falls to the floor three feet from the door, knocking the air from his lungs. He feels his eyes well up, feels the shame well up in his gut at the fact that he's  _crying_ , clutching at his knee with hands that come away bloody. He can't breathe.  _He can't fucking_   _breathe._

The door opens up with a loud screech and Keith sees a pair of feet. Their quickly covered up by knees hitting the ground.

" _Merlin_ ," Coppermine helps him sit up. "Holy crap, Keith. What the hell happened to you? Have you been  _shot_?"

Keith tries to say something snappy back, but all he manages to force out is a low whine.

"Just- just calm down. I've got you. I've got-" Coppermine murmurs something under his breath. Keith blinks, clearing his vision just in time for him to catch the kid's healing spell seeping into his leg, the blood that had soaked through his bandage sliding back into his wound. "Oh my god, oh my god-"

Keith grabs Coppermine by the collar, dragging him down so that he can look the kid in the eye, "What's going on?"

"I don't- It's just-" Coppermine takes a deep breath, trying to center himself. "The alarm went off while I was still in the medical wing. They're saying that there are dead bodies all over the grounds outside, that there are- oh  _shit_. Oh shit," Coppermine sputters as he looks down at Keith's knee, his mind seeming to catch onto how utterly fucked they are. "Did mages do this?"

"No. A fucking muggle," Keith admits, struggling to his feet. He stumbles and Coppermine catches him, hauling him upwards. "How bad is it out there?"

"Bad," Coppermine says, his face grim as he loops Keith's arm around his shoulders. They walk together towards the exit. "Mook's just up the way. She sent me to find you. Scott's with her."

Keith's heart clenches as he remembers that Coppermine doesn't know,  _can't ever know,_  the truth about the Department. Keith's barely ever felt a protective instinct towards the brat, but he does now.  _He's just a kid. I have to._

"Merlin, Keith," Mook gasps when she sees him, Depre Scott standing at her side as usual. "What happened?"

"He says a muggle did it to him," Coppermine supplies before Keith can get a word out. "Fuck, if they've got muggles working with them, then the mages have broken the Statute. They know about us."

"It's not just muggles. They've got wizarding allies, too," Keith says and Coppermine gapes at him.

"Pretty sure they've brought the Thief King, Bakura, with them, too, considering that the anti-muggle technology charm just got taken down," Mook supplies.

"Devlin, the muggle kid- he mentioned someone else," Keith says. "Someone named Atem. He put them in the same category as Bakura, so-"

"They had the Lady Pharaoh's Item in San Francisco," Coppermine says, his eyes managing to get even wider. "Fuck, you don't think-"

"That they've got a second King? Yeah, that's exactly what I fucking think," Keith spits.

"We need to get out of here. Now," Mook says.

"And abandon our post?" Coppermine asks, looking shocked that that's even an option that they're discussing.

"Look, Pete. There's a lot more going on here than you know. We need to leave before anyone can stop us," Mook tries to gentle her voice, but it's clear that she's terrified. They all were.

Coppermine, to the surprise of everyone, doesn't fight her on the point. He just nods and moves his shoulder to take more of Keith's weight.

Keith shakes his head, "Leave me behind. I'll just slow you down."

"Keith-"

"Don't. Seriously, don't fight me on this," Keith says. "Just go."

A look is shared between the three of them, going from Coppermine to Mook to Scott. Then Scott moves forwards, pulls Keith's other arm around his shoulders and takes his remaining weight. Mook nods and they start walking.

"What are you going?!" He shouts as he's practically carried in a direction he most certainly doesn't want to go.

"Don't fight  _me_  on this," Tilla tells him. "You're not the leader any more, Keith. I am. And you're going to lose that leg if we don't check it out soon, so just  _shut up_."

Keith's jaw drops open and then he shuts it with a click. He did say that. Drunk Keith is an idiot sometimes (though he's not sure if this is one of them).

They rush towards the staircase and Keith uselessly swinging his legs in an attempt to walk. Mook shoulders through Unspeakables running in the other direction, cursing one that tries to recruit her to head upstairs. An explosion rocks the island at one point and the south side of the building crumbles to bits in an electrical storm. But they keep moving towards the exit and with each and every step Keith wonders why they're not dead yet.

Pegasus is waiting for them at the gates, blood dripping from the Millennium Eye.

Coppermine swears up a storm and Keith barely manages to stop him from going for his wand.

"You'll just get us all killed, you idiot," he growls.

"Listen to Keith, boy," Pegasus laughs and between him and the closed front gates lay the broken, battered bodies of the near fifty mage prisoners that they'd taken from San Francisco. Sensing Keith's thoughts, he says, "Oh don't worry, not all of them are dead."

One of the prisoners closest to him grabs Pegasus's ankle in an attempt to do… something? Keith doesn't know what. But Pegasus just rolls his eyes and fires a silent green Killing Curse directly into the man's skull.

Solomon Mutuo dies with a look of shock painted across his features. And that's when Keith realizes that everything up to this point has been for nothing.

_I'm scared. Oh god, I don't want to die._

"Now, where are you going, Ms. Mook?" Pegasus steps forwards and Keith does something so incredibly stupid, wrenching himself away from Scott and Coppermine and throwing himself in front of all three of them because something tells him that Pegasus doesn't want to mow through him as much as he does everyone else. Pegasus laughs at him, "And what exactly makes you think that, Keith Howard?"

He has no fucking clue.

"I wonder why I ever bothered," Pegasus snarls, raising his wand. Green sparks fly from the end. "Traitors to the end. Just like your filthy Plant mother."

If there's anything that Keith is going to take to the grave with him, it's that, in this tiny fraction of a second,  _Maximillion Pegasus is dead wrong_. Because he remembers the vision he'd had about the woman standing outside the bell jar, the one that had aged and de-aged him and his brother a thousand million times over before she was satisfied, and that woman had not been a Plant.

" _Avada-_ "

An unholy scream erupts from the bodies behind Pegasus as the earth rips wide open. Lava and seawater erupt from the crack, rising up and crashing down on the madman. Pegasus circles his wand around himself, forming a shield around his body.

Matthew Jacques stands, beaten and bloody and terrifying, his hair flying in the wind as he chanted in a tongue that Keith would never understand. He points towards Keith and suddenly, a misty apparition of Jacques stands beside him.

"Leave or die. I don't care which. Just don't get in my way," Jacques's ghost explodes, the dust forming a million knives that fly towards Pegasus at break neck speeds. They shatter his shield, forcing him to aparate. Pegasus appears amists the bodies, yanking one of the survivors from the pile and holding the kid in front of him like a human shield.

It's Weevil Underwood. Because, of course it is.

Pegasus holds his wand to the kid's throat, laughing as he drags the kid backwards, "One wrong move, Jacques, and you'll kill us both. You wouldn't want to do that, now would you?" He turns to Underwood, "You're friend Bakura won't save you now, no matter how much you're practically praying for him to.  _Bakura! Bakura!_ " He says in a high pitched mocking tone. "You see Keith over there. The blond one with the broken leg?"

Keith sees Weevil's eyes flit to him for a second.

"He's the one who called your precious Bakura to tell him to save you, because he couldn't bare the thought of Ryou Andrews' sacrifice being in vein," Pegasus presses the tip of his wand into Underwood's fresh, strong enough to leave a bruise. "But I can see your thoughts, boy. Shall we tell him what really happened to his precious mage boy? Before he makes his biggest mistake yet?"

Underwood slams his head back into Pegasus's nose, breaking it with a crack, before grabbing for his face with his hands. Keith remembers a little bit of what Underwood was capable of, knows that right now the kid is injecting the most deadly disease he can come up with into Pegasus's body.

Pegasus screams, his skin blistering, popping and sizzling where Underwood is touching him. Another figure leaps from the crowd, grabbing Underwood and pulling him from Pegasus's grasp before they both fall to the ground and Mokuba Kaiba shouts, "Now!"

Keith reacts at the same time Jacques does, at the same time Scott and Coppermine and Mook all do. The combination of wizarding and mage magic blasts Pegasus with more power than his wand is able to handle, throwing him through the brick wall behind him. Keith figures that that will buy them all a few seconds if nothing else.

"Hey!" Comes the sound of a few of the Unspeakables that they passed on the way here. Keith spins just in time to see the front gates crashing open dramatically, but he feels how the temperature in the room skyrockets and an ocean of sand floods the corridor.

The roar of death and destruction is the only warning Keith gets before Coppermine tackles him to the floor and a great lioness made of blood and sand jumps overtop of them, sinking it's teeth and claws into the first Unspeakable it reaches, tearing him in half. Before anyone can react, the monster uses the bottom end of its staff to impale another and rip the head off of a third.

Keith thinks of the aurors in the American Ministry of Magic and realizes that they were very,  _very_  lucky.

More mages swarm the gates, some picking through the bodies on the floor looking for survivors, while other marched passed Keith, muggle guns held at the ready. Jacques rushes forwards to pull Amanda Green from the sands of the lioness body she'd surrounded herself with. A one legged Mokuba Kaiba gapes openly at the stunning Cassandra Bleu, who helps him to stand as another girl, this one black with a wand and a missing finger, wrenches Underwood to his feet. A third woman, tiny, bald, and one-eyed, watches them with a bored look on her face.

Lost in the swarm, Mook grabs Keith and together with their team, they haul ass towards the open gateway, running passed mages and wizards and muggles alike.

Because they're  _done_. Done with this fucking organization that's robbed them of so much. Done with the jobs that hurt people. Done with everything that Keith did that led to the death of Ryou Andrews.

But before they can pass through, they hear, " _Avada Kedavra Maxima!_ "

Millions of green bolts fire from the hole in the wall created by Pegasus, killing anyone and everyone who got in their path. Keith just manages to pull Coppermine out of harm's way, while Mook uses her body to cover Depre Scott. Unspeakables and their lifelong enemies die side by side and the main hallway of the Department of Mysteries is reduced to molten slone.

" _Mama! Mama!_ "

A terrible scream erupts from the mouth of the black woman beside Cassandra Bleu. She's shaking the body of the bald woman, who'd leapt in front both girls to shield them from the blast. The clothing on her back is shredded open, her skin burnt and bubbling.

"Captain!" Shouts a huge man from the far end of the hall. It's Kebade, the same giant wizard who'd travelled with Devlin's group. He sprints towards the three girls, eyes panicked, but he's struck down before he can make it.

"Enough!" Maximillion Pegasus shouts as he emerges from the hole in the wall. His face is covered in the open, bleeding sores that Underwood had infected him with. "Enough!"

"Fuck you!" Keith shouts firing a curse at his former boss. Pegasus knocks it away without even looking at him.

"You all die," Pegasus growls. "All of you. I will purge you from this earth. None of you deserve to live any longer." He turns his gaze towards the screaming woman. "Oh, do shut up. She never loved you, Meron Tadesse. You, your father, or your screaming bastard. I'll be sure to wipe out the rest of your pathetic family when I'm done here, once and for all."

Cassandra Bleu punches forwards and lightning arches out from her fingers, striking the shield that Pegasus just manages to get up. The wizard's magic holds for a second before buckling backwards, imploding in on itself and blasting Pegasus right in the face. When he look back up, Pegasus is missing half the skin on his wand arm.

"Don't touch them," Bleu says through a mouthful of fangs, bone white wings bursting through the clothing on her back as her neck elongated, skin turning into hard scales.

Pegasus smirks as if he can't feel the pain, "Is this concern, Ms. Bleu?"

"Go to hell, you monster!" Meron throws the body of her mother away, raising her wand and throwing a curse Keith doesn't recognize at Pegasus. She follows up with a second and a third, spell after spell of new, unheard of magic, trying to catch Pegasus off guard while Bleu transformed behind her. Pegasus ducked and weaved the best that he could, but nothing that he seemed to throw back at either sister seemed to affect them for long.

_A love shield_ , Keith thinks, staring at the tiny body of the woman who'd laid down her life for both girls.  _Their mother is protecting them_. But then he thinks,  _It won't be enough._

Off to the side, Devlin and his crew rushed forwards, followed by the wizards and witches that they'd pulled from the cells below. With guns and wands held at the ready, they formed a circle around Amanda Green and Matthew Jacques as the great Spellcasters looked towards each other and nod. As Devlin and his crew fired on Pegasus, Green mutters in an ancient language as the molten floor twisted around her and rose, snakelike, up her body.

"What's going on?" Coppermine whispers hoarsely in Keith's ear.

"They're trying to hold him off," Scott answers for him. "But they can't win. And they know it."

He's right. Because keeping Pegasus distracted meant that a legless Mokuba Kaiba could rest his weight on Weevil Underwood's shoulders and guide the survivors out of the gates, towards the cliffs. Kaiba glances in their direction as the last of them pass through, looks Coppermine directly in the eye.

"Please.  _Please_ ," Coppermine begs him. For what, Keith doesn't know.

Kaiba doesn't blink as he turns his back on them and Keith can't even blame him.

The rock around Amanda Green forms a massive snake with burning eyes and scales made of the black chunks of molten stone and rock and smoke. When it opens it's mouth, Keith sees an enferno swirling in it's belly beyond long stalactite fangs dripping with liquid fire. The thing shoots lava at Pegasus the same moment that Bleu's dragon unleashes a torrent of white hot lightning from it's mouth. The heat is so intense that it cracks the very foundations of the island, the sound snapping deep into the ground below.

And yet, Pegasus stands, a circle of untouched earth around his feet marred only by the blood dripping from his eye socket and arm.

Pegasus laughs.

"I was never much of a fighter," he tells them. "But I was always quite good at defending myself. So please, tire yourselves out, waste your bullets, call upon your gods, let your dead defend you. I can see what you will do before you do it. I will outlast you-"

Pegasus's voice is cut short as a bolt of lightning hits his shield, destroying it entirely. His eyes widen in shock.

_He didn't see that one coming_ , Keith thinks. He looks towards the stairs and sees Bakura.

The mage is still short, wearing muggle tactical gear that looks to be a size too big for him with a baseball cap covering most of his white hair, like Devlin and Amanda Green and their entire crew had all worn Beside him walks an equally tiny woman with equally strange hair, bright red and woven into long dreadlocks, and wearing the same dark uniform. Her eyes are a dark purple, just like Bakura.

_This must be Atem, the Lady Pharaoh of legend,_  Keith realizes. He has false memories of a mother that never existed reading him their story before he went to sleep at night. He never pictured them looking like this, so young and otherworldly.

And behind them both stood Reiko Kitamori, her pretty face twisted into something unrecognizable by the look of hatred it wore.

"Everyone get to the helicopters. Now," Atem says, her voice low and crackling with ancient power.

"I can't read your thoughts," Pegasus sounds terribly confused.

Bakura snorts at him, "Didn't you lot learn anything from the years you had a pair of divine weapons on this island? They don't work on each other, dumbass." Bakura then moves his hand so quickly that Keith almost misses it, blocking Kitamori's advance. "Don't."

"But-" The Plant tries to speak, but they cut her off.

"You'll just end up killing yourself. He's too powerful," Atem warns her. Then, to Keith's utter surprise, the Lady Pharaoh sends Kitamori a stunning smile. "Don't worry. We'll leave him alive for you."

"No!" Pegasus screams, launching a volley of powerful spells their way. Atem plants herself in front of both her friends, holds her hands with her palms out, and halts them in mid air. Then, she curls her fingers, contracting the rods of light into tiny, shaking spheres, before flinging them back at Pegasus. He just manages to get out of their way before the Killing Curses explode at his feet, carving deep craters into the ground where he once stood.

"Run. Now!" Keith can't remember which mages gave that order, but everyone seems to follow it, hurtling themselves towards the open gates and towards the two helicopters outside. Cassandra Bleu's dragon form shrinks before their eyes, wings disappearing into her back, and she runs naked into the cockpit, strapping herself in without a hint of shame.

Beside Devlin, Keith sees Joey Wheeler transform near instantaneously into the slightly smaller Black Dragon, crouching down low so that Devlin and the wizards from the cells can climb on board. He and his team try to escape onto one of the helicopters, to be forgotten in the chaos, but they are stopped by the terrifying form that Amanda Green has taken on.

"Amanda! Amanda, shift back!" Keith hears Jacques says somewhere off to the side. He thinks that the other Spellcaster is trying to calm Green, but to no avail.

Coppermine strikes first, sending a bolt of red towards the great molten snake. But the thing just opens its mouth and swallows the bolt whole before raining boiling hot magma on them, the thick, black smoke clogging the air. Keith's lungs fill and he can't breathe, it's burning inside his body and  _he can't breathe, oh god, he's going to die here_ and-

"Apep!" Shouts Kitamori from behind them as she clears the air of the smoke. Keith falls to his knees with Mook and Coppermine and Scott, gasping for breath. The giant snake turns its smoldering head towards her as, behind it, the blades of the helicopters start to turn. Keith turns his head and watches as Kitamori points a pair of wands at Green.

"You're Apep, god of evil. Give Amanda Green back," Kitamori says again. The demon just laughs at her.

"What are you doing?" Coppermine shouts, sounding so utterly confused. "Why are you helping us?"

Kitamori grimaces, "Because I'm an idiot. I got too close and I started to care." Then she looks directly at Coppermine and smiles, so heartbreakingly sad. "Because you were my first friend in a hundred years, Misha. And I'm not going to let you die."

The snake opens its mouth and roars. Meron, piloting the second helicopter opens the door to her cockpit to shout at Jacques, the only mage left on the island, "Get inside or I'm leaving you behind!"

"Get out of here! I'm make sure she's fine," Kitamori yells at him. Jacques gives her a tiny nod before hopping on board just before the pair of choppers rise into the air. Then she turns her attention back to Amanda Green, swallowing hard. The monster tries to snap at the choppers, but Bleu vears out of the way.

Then, Kitamori screams, "Mala Pukar!"

And suddenly all the snake can focus on his Reiko Kitamori.

The Plant grins in a way that makes Keith realize that she's absolutely terrified, "How's a rematch sound?"

Kitamori spits on the ground and the snake attacks.


	12. Mediation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill looks up and catches Seto’s gaze. He blinks down at Kuirmet, “Oh sorry. I didn’t realize you had guests.”
> 
> “It’s no problem,” Seto speaks up, refusing to let his eyes fall upon Bill’s wand, sitting in a holster on the man’s hips.
> 
> “Bill Weasley,” he introduces himself, stepping forwards and holding out his hand. “Cursebreaker. I’m usually out in Egypt, but as you probably heard, I’ve come home for a bit.”
> 
> “Egypt?” Seto raises an eyebrow as he takes the wizard’s hand. “Find anything interesting while you’re there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The Costco Wholesale Corporation is founded by James Sinegal and Jeffrey Brottman.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of minor character death, major character death, political propaganda, political assassinations, matricide, (both implied and actual), abuse, child abuse, infidelity, blackmail, underage relationships, miscarriage, blood, rape, and the unintentional misgendering of a closeted character

After the negotiations are finished, Nurnok looks at the clock on the wall and tells them that it’s getting late.

“The shops have all closed for the day.  Only the Leaky Cauldron will be open now, unless you want to take a trip down Knockturn Alley,” she tells them, standing from her seat and slipping the vials Seto given her into her pocket.  Between them on the table lies a document that they have both signed in blood, magically binding them in agreement.

“We weren’t planning to stay so late,” Catherine admits.  She checks her own watch, “The car’s probably been ticketed by now.  Shit.”

“You are welcome to stay here tonight,” Nurnok offers.  “We have rooms in the catacombs for some of the humans who work for Gringotts.”

Seto looks at his companions and sees the exhaustion in their faces.  He nods, “Thank you, your majesty.”

She and Kuirmet lead them up several flights of steps and down the winding maze of hallways into an open area that looked to have been carved out of a cave.  The ceiling was lit with blinking spheres of light, casting shadows on the long stalactites that spiked down from above.  Bright torches with Everbright spells lined the stone walls, illuminating the vast room filled with comfortable looking couches and chairs.  Books and magazines covered the tables and a tall redheaded human man stood with his back to them in a small kitchen area.

Seto inexplicably thinks of the break room that he and Z share at his office, a tiny windowless room with a creaky kitchen table set that they found at the end of someone’s driveway six months into their first project.  Before that, they’d sat on the floor next to the Costco-sized packages of toilet paper they’d stacked against the wall, eating microwave meals with plastic forks and spoons.  At least now, with the table, they could pretend to be civilized human beings.

“Bill,” Kuirmet calls out to the man, flashing a toothy smile, as Nurnok slides into the background, weaving a Notice-Me-Not charm around herself so quickly that Seto almost missed it.

The man turns at the sound of his name.  He was tall and thin in a way that made Seto think that he was maybe only a couple of years younger than himself.  His long red hair was held back in a ponytail at the back of his neck, a fang earring dangled out from under it, and when he saw Kuirmet, he returned the bright grin.

“I didn’t realize that you’d be back so soon,” Kuirmet walked forwards, meeting Bill and throwing his arms around the man’s waist in a hug.  Bill returned it, laughing.

“My kid brother’s about to start school, so I came back to help out.  I’m thinking of giving Ron my old wand,” Bill tells the goblin when he lets him go.

“Is this the last of your siblings to go to Hogwarts?” Kuirmet asks.

Bill shakes his head, “Still got one more.  Gin starts next year.”

“You have a very large family.  You must be quite lucky,” Kuirmet says.  Then he frowns, “Any word yet on Yanni?”

Bill’s expression darkens, “No.  Aurors aren’t saying anything.”

“You are being careful, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.  I am,” the man says.  Mai reaches for Seto’s wrists and squeezes twice.

_ He’s lying, _ Seto realizes.   _ About what, I wonder? _

Bill looks up and catches Seto’s gaze.  He blinks down at Kuirmet, “Oh sorry.  I didn’t realize you had guests.”

“It’s no problem,” Seto speaks up, refusing to let his eyes fall upon Bill’s wand, sitting in a holster on the man’s hips.

“Bill Weasley,” he introduces himself, stepping forwards and holding out his hand.  “Cursebreaker.  I’m usually out in Egypt, but as you probably heard, I’ve come home for a bit.”

“Egypt?” Seto raises an eyebrow as he takes the wizard’s hand.  “Find anything interesting while you’re there?”

“The job title sounds cooler than it is.  It’s mostly just stopping muggle archeologists from stumbling onto something that might break the Statute of Secrecy.  Nothing big,” Bill shrugs, but Seto’s blood runs cold.  The tomb builders of old used to weave dark and terrible curses into the very earth of the Valley of the Kings, ones that should have lasted for thousands of years beyond even now.  If this Bill Weasley could shrug off this aspect of his job as ‘nothing big’, then the secrets that were held within that Valley weren’t as safe as they’d once imagined.

_ We’ve been gone too long from the magical world, _ Seto thinks for the second time that day.   _ The advancements of the last four hundred years have been made in leaps and bounds. _

“Sorry, I don’t think I caught your name,” Bill asks, snapping Seto out of his thoughts.

“Seann Penner,” he says without a moment’s hesitation, giving the name of his prior cycle, just in case there was any charm or enchantment on the man that could detect a lie.

“You’re from America?” Bill asks, sounding incredulous.  “Is this about all the stuff that’s going on with the Department over there?”

Seto doesn’t answer, just gives him a smirk that Bill could interpret as he liked.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have catch up later, Bill.  I’m to direct these people to their rooms,” Kuirmet interrupts.  They say their goodbyes and the goblin leads them into one of the tunnels on the other side of the hall.

Nurnuk reappears behind him and Seto almost jumps out of his skin.  He’d forgotten that she was there.

“You’re very good at that,” Serenity says, her blind eyes turning to the goblin queen.

“I’ve had lots of practice,” she answers in a vague sort of way that makes Seto pity her and the life she’s had to live since she assumed the throne.  “This way.”

Nurnok leads them into a hallways lined with open archways carved into the walls.  Beyond them lay stone beds large enough for humans, covered in blankets and pillows in a way that makes it look almost like a nest.  Seto smiles and gives the queen her people’s gesture of thanks.

He watches as the others choose their rooms and moves to take the one on the end, but Nurnok stops him by placing a hand on his wrist.

“Will you walk with me, Pharaoh Seth?” She asks.  He nods and tells Mai that he will be back soon.

Nurnok presses her hand into the stone wall at the end of the hallways, opening up a hidden cavern.  Seto watches as the floor sinks into the ground, forming a winding staircase that disappeared into the darkness below.

“What’s this way?” He asks.

Nurnok sighs, sounding resigned, “I figure that you’d like to know what Tomisław Brzozowski died for.”

Then without saying anything else, she steps into the cavern and Seto can do nothing but follow her.

They keep walking in silence, the open staircase only illuminated by floating lights that follow them into the darkness.  Finally, after what feels like nearly an hour, Seto’s feet hit the floor.  He looks forwards and sees one of the lights flit passed Nurnok’s face.

“This way,” she tells him.

“How far down are we?” He asks.

“This is the deepest vault we have,” she says.  “It was carved by King Farnar after he succeeded Luggus to hold his father’s treasure.” Nurnok looks back at him, smirking.  “You and I are now the only people alive that know it even exists.”

“I’m honoured.”

“I don’t think that you understand what it means that I’m showing you this.  It is only seen by the reigning ruler and their heir,” she gives him a look.

Seto frowns, “I’m not your heir.  I followed my cousin, Atem, to the throne.  I’m not planning on ascending again, not even for you.”

Nurnok gives him a sigh of relief, “You would not be able to, even if I wanted it-- which I don’t, so put your mind at ease.  No, I just want, in case something happens, for someone else to know about it.”

“We’ve promised to protect you,” Seto implores.

“And I fully believe that you will do everything in your power to do so,” Nurnok tells him.  “But life is so uncertain, even when you can see the future as I can-- especially then,” she laughs.  “You must promise that if something is to happen to me, you will keep what I am about to show you safe.”

Seto nods, “Of course I will.”

“‘Atem’?” Nurnok asks suddenly.  “Is that the Lady Pharaoh’s name?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Odd name for a human woman to have.  It’s rather masculine, isn’t it?”

“It wasn’t originally her’s,” he answers.  When Nurnok frowns at him, Seto smirks, “It looks like I know something that you don’t.”

“Well, now you’re just being cheeky.”  Nurnok pauses before speaking again, “You said she was your cousin.”

“I did.”

“The legends say that you were her brother.”

“We may call each other brother and sister, but we’re not siblings by blood,” he corrects her.  “Though, I’m glad to know that that lie lasted for as long as it has.”

“It was intentional?”

Seto nods slowly, “The last thing that we wanted was for it to get out who my real father was.”

Nurnok stops dead in her tracks.  He can see it in her eyes as she figures it out, “The dark sorcerer in the legend?  You’re  _ Aknadin’s _ son?”

“He never raised me.  He just donated a couple of chromosomes.”

“I’m going to pretend to know what those things are,” Nurnok says.  “Over here.”

She flicks her hands and the balls of light fly forwards, encircling a metal chest on the floor.  Seto stayed where he was as Nurnok ran her fingers over the lock, pressing into the iron in random places, muttering in Gobbledegook.  The magic around the chest is so potent, Seto can feel it as it shifts, allowing Nurnok to open it.

Inside is another chest.  And then another.  And another.

The final chest has Nurnok cut her hand and smear her blood across the top.  She takes a deep breathe, grasps the handles and opens the chest.

Seto doesn’t know what he expected to find inside.  Jewels, perhaps, or a cursed object of untold power.  Maybe a creature or a demon.  A rip in the very fabric of the world.  But the chest contained none of that.

Nurnok reaches inside, and pulls out King Luggus’s treaure from it’s depths: a small page of rolled up parchment.

“What is it?” Seto asks, kneeling down beside the queen.

“What do you think?” Nurnok raises an eyebrow at him.

_ She’s testing me _ , he thinks.  Then he smirks, “I have no idea.”

“An honest answer.  Those things feel like a rarity these days.  I appreciate it,” she laughs at him.  “Very well.  Open it.”

She passes him the paper.  Seto rolls it around a few times in his hands, getting a feel for the heavy magical spells that the goblins had woven into the parchment over the years.

He passes it back unopened.

“I’m pretty sure if I tried, I’d end up as a puddle of goop on the floor,” he says.  “Perhaps one of our Spellcasters might be able to crack it if given a few days, but I’m not about to try.”  Seto sighs when Nurnok starts laughing at him again.  She seems to do that a lot.

“Smart move.  Why don’t you take a guess, then?”

“Whatever it is, you got it from Isidore Greengrass, who was the leader of the Coalition of Sacred Brothers in 1612.  It’s paper, so it’s either a map or a letter.  Or a...,” Seto trails off, frowning.  “Or a signed confession.  About something that the Brotherhood did.  Something that wasn’t about mage hunting, because that was neither a secret or something worth dying for, not even in this age.”

Nurnok nods and one of the balls of light floats by her again, casting long shadows across her face.

“The Brotherhood is old,” Seto continues.  “It’s been around for centuries.  Close to… to a millennia.”  He looks up, staring at the goblin queen.  “Camelot.  Something happened at Camelot.  And the Brotherhood guards the secret.”

“You know what happened at Camelot.  You keep the company of Shaloena the Seer, who was there at the time of the sack.  You know what the wizards did to the people that lived there,” Nurnok tells him.  “The Coalition of Sacred Brothers was created in the years following the ‘founding’ of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school that Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff created overtop the ashes of the House Pendragon.  And they had the help of the twenty-eight families that would eventually from the Brotherhood.”  The queen smirks, “How the foundations of wizarding society would shake if they were to find out what actually happened, that their heroes were not as their history books had described them.  How the Sacred Twenty-Eight would crash down around us if they knew that their ancestors were nothing more than upjumped peasants and mercenaries?”

Seto takes a moment to digest this information, turning it over in his head before shaking his head, “I thought you’d appreciated honest answers.”

“Who said that I didn’t give one?”

“Bill Weasley did,” he tells her.  “Not directly, of course, but the way he described being a Curse Breaker means that it’s his job to break into magical tombs in order to clear out any evidence that may break whatever law it is that wizards have to ensure that they stay separate from non-magical society.  Which means that he has never seen any evidence of wizarding magic prior to the year 50 BCE, which was when Cadmus Peverell created the Elder Wand, the very  _ first  _ wizarding instrument of magic.

“Which means that Bill Weasley,” Seto gestures upwards, towards where he assumes that Weasley is still sitting in the breakroom upstairs, “ _ knows _ that.  And he’s probably tried to tell someone about it recently, given that he’s got a friend that’s gone missing and he’s lying about whatever he’s supposed to be being careful about.”

“You don’t know that he’s lying.”

“Mai knows.  It’s part of her powers.  She can tell when people aren’t telling the truth,” Seto explains.  “Now, we know that the Department sends assassins after people who start asking too many questions about certain wizarding events-- don’t try to deny it, we have the Department Head’s personal assassin in our custody right now.  The fact that Weasley is alive is probably do to the fact that his family is one of those Sacred Twenty-Eight that you keep mentioning.”

“So?”

“ _ So _ … He’s alive.  And he knows.  Maybe not the whole truth but at the very least, some part of it.  And besides, he’s British.   _ He went to Hogwarts _ .  Camelot was built in the early 500’s by the de Bois family.  Do you seriously expect me to believe that he hasn’t noticed that the school he went to for several years has architecture from a period nearly nearly half a century prior to when the school was supposed to have been built?

“I doubt he’s the first.  I doubt he’s going to be the last.  The Department of Mysteries  _ can’t _ keep the secret of what really happened in Camelot without compromising on its prime directive to protect those who are part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight,” Seto stops to take a breath.  “And even then… even if the secret did some out, it wouldn’t make a difference.”

“Why not?”

“Because the only thing that the wizarding world would focus on is that, while the Sacred Twenty-Eight didn’t start out as royalty, they certainly married into it.”

Nurnok blinks, looking confused, “What do you mean?”

“Why do you think that the wizards decided to send Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff to Camelot after King Arthur’s coronation?  Because they were the best, but also because they were part of the Pendragon family,” Seto says.

“They were?”  Nurnok asks.

“Uther Pendragon may have been the first King of Camelot, but he answered to his father, High King Constantine III of Albion.  Uther was Constantine youngest child.  Constantine’s heir was Godwyn Pendragon, who ascended to the High Throne of Albion after his father’s death,” Seto explains.  “Godwyn’s eldest child, Arthur’s own cousin, was Helga Pendragon, who became Helga Hufflepuff after she married her husband, Emeric.  Godwyn’s next daughter married Sarlin Slytherin and had a son with him named Salazar.  Godwyn’s final son and heir never had children with his wife, but that’s because he was too busy with his mistress, a serving woman named Gwendolle Gryffindor.  As for Ravenclaw, she was the only daughter of Godwyn and Uther’s sister, Princess Annalda.”

“What has this got to do with anything?” Nurnok frowns.

“How do you think those four ensured the loyalties of the Sacred Twenty-Eight?  With marriage.  They married into the Pendragon royal family,” Seto implores.  “Hufflepuff had five children, Slytherin had eight.  Gryffindor’s only true born son died early, but he certainly had enough bastards to cover the rest.  Even Ravenclaw’s girl must have been married off.  So if you were to reveal your little ‘secret’ about how Hogwarts school was built on the ashes of the Pendragon empire, all they’ll say is that the royal line lives on through them.  No one will care about a few dead mages and non-magics.  No one that matters anyways.”

“The muggleborns would care.  The half bloods.  The blood traitor pureblood families, they might all rise up,” Nurnok supplies.  “They outnumber those that wouldn’t give a damn.”

“But Luggus wouldn’t have bet everything on a revolution that  _ might  _ happen.  He’d want something that he could attack the Sacred Twenty-Eight directly,” Seto implores.  “So what’s really on that piece of paper, your majesty?”

Nurnok regards him, spending a whole minute just looking at his face.  Then she blinks, slowly and without fear.

“You live up to your reputation, Pharaoh Seth,” she sighs.  “It’s a map.”

“Of what?”

She grins, all sharp teeth, “Of the entirety of Chamber of Secrets.”

Seto feels the moment slip from his fingers.  He’s lost.

“What is the Chamber of Secrets?” He asks finally.   _ It’s got something to do with Camelot _ , he thinks.   _ Something happened there that we don’t know about. _

“Something that’s not for you.  It’s something for the Daughter of Albion,” Nurnok tilts her head to the side.

A shiver runs down Seto’s spine.  He’s been played.

“Don’t worry, Pharaoh Seth.  I fully plan on upholding the agreement that we made,” Nurnok says, sounding absolutely sinister.  “But my people... we are going to end up on top of this fight that we both have with the Department.  We’ve been playing safe for nearly four hundred years and all it’s gotten us is a lot of dead royal family members.  I don’t have the luxury of hoping that everything is going to be okay anymore.”

“You’re playing both sides, like Luggus did,” he states.

“I learn from my ancestors.  As do you,” she nods in his direction.  “And it’s less both sides and more… helping various factions with common goals accomplish what I need them to do to ensure the survival of the goblin race.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.”

“You and my cousin would get along very well,” Seto states, feeling a little out of his depth.

“I wish that I would be able to meet her,” Nurnok grins, placing Luggus’s treasure back in the chest it came in.  She stands and turns to Seto, looking grave.  “If I die--”

“We’ve promised--”

“I know what you have promised-  you’ve written it in blood, you’re not going back on your word.  But some things are too dangerous to be written down.  You know this, because if you didn’t, there would be a record somewhere of you being Pharaoh Atem’s cousin and not her brother,” Nurnok swallows hard.  “ _ When _ I die, I need you to give Luggus’s treasure to a young witch named Amane Andrews.”

Seto doubts that he’ll get any information out of her about what the scroll actually contained, so instead he settles for: “Is Amane Andrews the Daughter of Albion?”

“No,” the queen answers.  “But she plays a role in her story.”

“And how will I find her, if I need to give her the treasure?”

“Oh, it shouldn’t be too hard,” Nurnok says, her eyes twinkling, like she knows something that he doesn’t.  “You ran into her on your way in, after all.”

* * *

 

There’s an owl at the window.  It’s snowy white with piercing yellow eyes.  Amane swallows hard.

It’s her father’s owl.  And attached to its leg is a bright red envelope.

“Well,” Mrs. Zabini sighs, looking utterly unimpressed with the howler her father has sent them.  “Isn’t he dramatic?”

“You’re supposed to answer them, before they blow up,” Amane mutters, looking at her feet.  Blaise leans against the wall behind her, arms crossed at his chest, a frown on his face.  She can feel his gaze on the back of her neck.

“I’ve had my fair share of howlers before.  From the families of ex-husbands that they think I’ve killed,” Mrs. Zabini rolls her eyes and steps forwards, calmly pulling the letter from the owl.  She gives it some bacon from the table, stroking its feathers with a single manicured finger, before letting it fly back home.

Mrs. Zabini sets the letter on the kitchen table as smoke begins to spew from the seems.  She pulls out her wand, mutters a few words under her breath, and violently pokes at the howler with the tip.  The letter spins on the table, lets out a sort of gasping sound, and then fades from its bright red to a more muted pastel pink.

“There.  That should do it,” Mrs. Zabini nods, satisfied with her work.  She holsters her wand and sits down at the table, pulling the howler forwards so that she could read the envelope.  “It’s addressed to me, but it  _ is _ from your father.  Are you alright with me opening it?”

Amane nods, “Yes.  Okay.”

Mrs. Zabini breaks the wax seal and pulls the letter from the envelope.  Her eyes dart back and forth as she reads it.  When she finishes, Mrs. Zabini presses her lips together and places the letter back on the table.

“Your father doesn’t like women all that much, does he?”

Amane shrugs, “I don’t if it women or just people--”

“I apologize.  I didn’t intend to phrase that as a question.  Your father doesn’t like women,” Mrs. Zabini states.  Blaise makes a noise behind Amane and she turns to look at him, but he doesn’t make eye contact.

“I… I guess,” Amane shrugs.

“He’s demanding that you come home, threatening that if I don’t, he’ll bring the full weight of the auror office down on my head,” Mrs. Zabini continues, sounding utterly bland about the entire thing.  “Like he has any power to do such a thing.  Rufus Scrimgeour is a good friend of mine and he has never once mentioned your father.”

“He’s got the Department of Mysteries--”

“If the Department of Mysteries wanted me dead, they’d have done it a long time ago and with much less fuss,” Mrs. Zabini says, her eyes hardening, her gaze somewhere a thousand yards beyond the room they were sitting in.  “Do you want to go home, my dear?”

Amane blinks down at her hands, “No.  But…”  She pauses, “Did he say anything about my mother?”

Mrs. Zabini’s lips thin, “The last bit was written by her.  She wants you to come home as well.”

“My mother, in the letter.  Did she call me anything?” she explains after Mrs. Zabini gives her a look of confusion.

Mrs. Zabini looks over the letter again, eyes darting back and forth as she read the last paragraph, “She calls you ‘sweetheart’.”

Amane swallows, “He forced her to write that.  She only ever calls me that when he’s angry.”

She thinks of Ryou in that moment, how they’d planned a secret failsafe into the code they’d used to communicate, back when he’d been at Hogwarts.  If they’d ever called Ryou’s owl by the name Bandit, then they’d know that the letter hadn’t been written by one of them.  Amane suspects that, in his dying moments, Ryou had told Keith Howard to tell her to take care of his owl for him, just so that she would know the truth.

“She can’t go back, mother,” Blaise finally speaks, stepping into the side of her vision.

“I don’t think I have much of a choice here.  He may not be able to follow up on his threats to bring the  _ entire _ auror department down on my head, but Mr. Andrews can certainly have me charged with kidnapping his daughter,” Mrs. Zabini sighs.  “The last thing I need is aurors poking around my home.  Merlin only knows that Rita Skeeter is just waiting to write another article about me.”

“So you’re staying that she has to--” Blaise spits, “Mother, that’s not-- We can’t--”

“It’s alright,” Amane lies.  There’s a pit in her stomach, heavy and guilty and shameful.   _ I don’t want to, but… _ The Zabini’s had stuck their necks out enough for her already.

“It’s  _ not _ ,” Blaise grunts, fingers clenching in the sleeves of his robes.  “He hits you.”

“What do you want to do, Ms. Andrews?” Mrs. Zabini asks, her dark eyes piercing, her voice steady.  “If you go back, I promise I will do everything in my power to put the fear of god into his soul.  He will never touch you again once I’m done with him, do you hear me?”

“And my mother?” Amane whispers.

“Never.  I swear it.”

Amane swallows hard, “Father always said that the gods were dead.”

Mrs. Zabini smirks, “He would.”

Amane looks down at her feet, wringing her hands.  Her throat is too tight for her to speak.  She refuses to cry.

A hand comes down on her shoulder.  It’s a little awkward, a little shaky, but it’s warm and  comforting.  She knows that it’s Blaise, but she thinks that if she looks back, he might get self-conscious and take it away.

Amane doesn’t think there are words in the English language to describe how much she appreciates it right now.

“He won’t touch anyone again,” Mrs. Zabini states.  Amane believes her.

“Okay,” she whispers.

She packs her bags slowly, her mind buzzing and her fingers lethargic.  Blaise stands in the doorway of the guest room.

“I don’t like this.”

“What you like doesn’t really matter right now,” Amane snaps, but it comes out half hearted.  Her hands keep trembling.

“You don’t like this.”

“Shut up,” she wheezes.

“Don’t go,” Blaise’s voice comes out as a plea.  It makes her feel sick.

_ Don’t go, _ she’d once said to Ryou, begging him to stay home.

_ I have to _ , he’d answered.  She doesn’t even know that she’s said those same words out loud until their coming out of her mouth.

“No, you don’t.  You could stay here,” Blaise says through gritted teeth.

“Do you honestly think my father would let me?”

“ _He shouldn’t get a fucking_ _choice_!” Blaise shouts, “He hits you!  He hits your mother!  He signed his own son up for a program knowing that if he failed, he’d be murdered!  You ran away from him, Amane.  You know--”

“Of course I know what he is!” She shouts back.  “I’ve known my entire life what he is.  I don’t need you to tell me!”

“I can’t just do nothing!”  He yells.

“It’s not about you!  It’s not about this dumb engagement that you and your mom are hanging onto to.  It’s not about her wanting a girl in the family,” Amane stalks forwards and jabs a finger into his chest.  Blaise jerks back, getting a foot in between the two of them, arms curling around himself defensively.  His sudden actions derail her thoughts only momentarily, but she presses on regardless, “It’s about my mom.  It’s about how he’s alone with her and how he made her lie in a letter to get me to come home.  It’s about how her calling me ‘sweetheart’ is basically her screaming for help.  I have to.”

Blaise grits his teeth, his finger clenched in tight fists, and stomps out of the room.  Amane doesn’t know if that makes her feel better or worse.

Mrs. Zabini takes her back to Edenborough and Amane thinks that she’s going to be sick the entire time.  Blaise is there as well, though he hasn’t said a word since their argument.  All she can do is think about her mother.   _ I have to protect her.  She’s all I have left. _

Amane glances over at Blaise, just for a second,  _ But I can’t do that once I’m married to him. _

Her father answers the door, “Viola.”

“James,” Mrs. Zabini says back, a venomous smile on her face.  “Can I come in?”

“No,” he scowls and tries to pull Amane inside.  Mrs. Zabini stops him with a single sentence.

“I’ve seen her bruises.”

James Andrews pauses, his eyes flicking between Amane and the woman before him.  He takes a minute to straighten himself before saying, “The girl needs a firm hand.”

“Those bruises are not the cause of a ‘firm hand’ and we both know it,” Mrs. Zabini tells him.  “You are never going to touch her again.”

“Do not tell me how to raise my daughter--”

“You are never. Going to touch.  Either of them.  Again,” Mrs. Zabini reaches into her purse and pulls out a series of photographs.  “Unless, of course, you want these to end up in the hands of the Rita Skeeter.”

Her father snatches the photos from her and flips through them.  The frown on his face gets darker and darker with each one he sees.

“How did you get these?”

Mrs. Zabini rolls her eyes, “I have friends in low places, James.”

“You think this will change anything--”

“If you genuinely think that I’m blackmailing you because most of the girls that you pay to fuck are muggles, you’re wrong.  I’ve never been one to shame someone else’s kinks. To each their own, I suppose,” Mrs. Zabini’s voice is soft, silky, and utterly dangerous.  Amane’s father looks murderous.  “No.  What will end up going to the press are those last few photos: the ones where you’re tying muggle prostitutes up  _ with magic _ .  Which, if I’m not mistaken, is a breach of the Statute of Secrecy and very,  _ very _ illegal.”

“I obliviate them--”

“No.  You don’t.  And even if you did, do you really think Skeeter will care?” Mrs. Zabini states.

“I--”

“Have run out of options.  So now,” Mrs. Zabini continues, “you are going to invite me inside.  Then you are going to serve some tea and we are going to talk like rational adults about how we would  _ love it _ if our children could get to know each other before the wedding.  How utterly  _ modern _ of us, don’t you think?”

Amane thinks that Mrs. Zabini is her favourite human being on the entire planet.

James Andrews whirls around, stalking back into the house and leaves the door wide open.  Mrs. Zabini chuckles, “I suppose that would be best ‘Come inside’ I could have hoped for.”

The Zabini’s stay for a couple of hours, briefly talking about how Amane should come to visit at least once a week before school started before Mrs. Zabini turns the conversation towards Amane’s mother, asking her about her life in Japan before her marriage.  Natsuki stammers through the first couple of sentences, looking constantly towards her husband, but James seemed to be wound so tight that he could barely speak.  It was only after Mrs. Zabini placed her hand over Natsuki’s that she was able to continue.

“James and I met while I was still at school,” Natsuki blushed while she told the story, looking hopelessly wistful.  “He was doing a guest lecture about how the samurai had folded spells into the metal of their swords.  It was so silly.  It wasn’t even anything that I needed for my studies, but my friend told me that the professor was young and cute, so I went.”

“My goodness, did you become the teacher’s pet?” Mrs. Zabini laughs jokingly, but in a way that tells Amane that she’s only keeping up appearances.

“Oh!  No, no, no!  We got together a couple of months after I graduated,” Natsuki corrects her.  “We met up at a coffee shop, because I was looking for a reference.  But then… we kept getting coffee.  And the next thing I knew…” she lets out a soft sigh, “Here I was, in another country, married to a lovely man with a baby on the way.  It all seemed like such a fairy tale.”

“I’m sure it did,” Mrs. Zabini tells her.  She says something else, but Amane can’t really hear her over the roaring blood in her ears.  Because, whatever baby Natsuki is talking about, it would be too early to have been Ryou.

Her father would never have let Natsuki get rid of a potential heir.  So that must have meant that her mother lost a baby.

_ I could have had another brother _ , she thinks.  And then,  _ If they already had two babies, then I wouldn’t need to exist _ .

It’s not a comforting thought.

Mrs. Zabini wishes them all a good night, stepping out into the night sky with her son trailing behind her.  She turns back and waves at Amane, “Don’t forget to write, my dear!  I look forward to hearing from you!”

She completely ignores James Andrews and Amane loves her all the more for that.

Her father stalks upstairs without another word and leaves Amane and her mother to order the house elf to clean up.  Natsuki blinks at the front door, looking a bit dazed.

“She’s quite an interesting woman,” her mother mutters to no one and rubs the hand that Mrs. Zabini had held.  Then, suddenly, she frowns.  “What’s this…?”

Amane sees scrawling black lines on the inside of her mother’s arm, shifting into words too small for her to read at this distance.  But Natsuki seems to understand them just fine.

“What is it?” Amane asks, coming closer in an attempt to see.  But her mother is too fast, jerking her arm back and hiding it beneath the sleeves of her robes.

“It’s nothing.  It’s time for you to go to sleep, Amane-chan,” Natsuki says in soft Japanese.  She smiles kindly, “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

Amane frowns, but nods, and tiptoes up the stairs to her room.  On the way, she passes by Ryou’s.  She keeps her eyes on the ground, refusing to look in, just as she does every time she walks by it.

In the morning, Natsuki doesn’t say anything.  She serves her father his Earl Grey like she does every morning as the house elf scuttles around them, offering pasties and extra bacon.  Natsuki keeps her eyes down and her mouth shut.

James Andrews spends his morning and afternoon at his desk, pouring over old manuscripts and parchments like he always does, scribbling in his notebook until the back of his hand is dyed black from the ink.  Then, just before dinner, he goes out for a few hours-- to clear his head, he always says, or to pick up a new book.  Natsuki fills him a flask of hot tea and passes it to him before he leaves.

But that night, he doesn’t come back.

The next day, Natsuki puts on a show for the auror who comes to take their statements.  She cries, fumbles around trying offering tea and cakes, stutters and stammers her way through her sentences.  If Amane hadn’t seen the writing on her arm the day before, she’d almost believe that her father had just gone missing.

“It’s just… I knew there were other women…” Natsuki finally admits.  “I was never enough… Not after I lost the baby.  And then-- Then Ryou--”

“Mrs. Andrews, I promise we’ll find your husband,” says the pink-haired Auror Tonks, the kind hearted woman who’d answered their emergency floo call.

“I know that there was one in Knockturn Alley,” Natsuki says, sounding a bit more confident, a bit more angry.  “I followed him once, after we had our first son.  She lived above the Apothecary."

Auror Tonks writes it down in her notebook, nodding the entire time.

“I told him what I’d seen and he…” Natsuki flinches in a way that is perfectly convincing.  Auror Tonks frowns and suddenly, Amane thinks that she won’t be looking to hard.

The auror leaves with yet another promise to contact them as soon as she has information.  Natsuki shuts the door, rests her head on the door frame, and breathes in deep.  When she turns back to Amane, her eyes are dry.

“Kaa-san?” Amane whispers, “What…?  How…?”

“You knew.  About Ryou.  About what really happened to him.”  Natsuki is not asking.  Her Japanese is strong and flawless and so terribly sad.

Amane nods, but can’t look her mother in the eye.  Mrs. Zabini must have overheard.  Or Blaise told her.

“You didn’t tell me… Because you were trying to protect me,” Natsuki says.

Amane nods again.  Natsuki rushes forwards and hugs her.

“Shhhhhh… Shhhhh…  It’s alright.  It’s going to be alright…  I’m not angry, I promise,” her mother whispers.  “I promise, it’s all going to be alright.”

“Kaa-san... Kaa-san, did you…?” Amane didn’t even realize that she’s crying.  “Did you…?  Father…?”

Natsuki rubs her back, breathing slowly in order to calm her, “Shhhhh…  Shhhhh…”

“Kaa-san, I need to know,” Amane says, pulling away.  She stares at her mother, barely recognizing her.

Natsuki swallows hard, “He knew.  When he signed Ryou up for the program.  He knew what would happen if Ryou failed.  Then he lied to me.  He told me that Ryou was in a camp and that if I behaved he would make sure that our baby would be safe.  But Ryou was already dead by then.  I couldn’t just do nothing.  I had to get you away from him, but he’d never let me take you away.”

“But… how?” Amane wheezes.

Her mother shrugs, “I was training to be a healer before I married your father.  I know what poisons they look for when performing an autopsy.  They won’t find anything that’s muggle in origin.”

“They haven’t found him yet.  He could still be alive…”

Natsuki shakes her head, “They’ll find him right where I told them.  Dead in her bed.  I calculated the dose perfectly.”

“Kaa-san… You…”

“Killed him.  I killed my husband,” Natsuki says, her voice solid and strong, unlike anything Amane has ever heard before.  She touches Amane’s cheek, “He won’t touch either of us ever again.  I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For your own reference, the Pendragon Family Tree is as follows:
> 
> High King Constantine Pendragon III of Albion (which, interestingly, is another name for Scotland) marries Isabeth Carweald. Together they have four children: Prince Godwyn the heir, Prince Glegor, Princess Annalda, and Prince Uther.
> 
> Godwyn marries a Roman woman named Pompilia Sidonia, who is a member of one of the original Roman wizarding families that the Peveralls gave magic to and is the reason why Godwyn's children are all witches and wizards. Together, they have three children: Princess Helga Pendragon, Princess Belanor Pendragon, and Prince Gauborn the heir.
> 
> Prince Glegor dies early in life and has no issue.
> 
> Princess Annalda marries Duke Reirflet Ravenclaw and together they have one daughter, Rowena Ravenclaw, a non-magic born witch.
> 
> Prince Uther becomes King Uther after conquering the neighbouring kingdom of Camelot, then ruled by the de Bois family. Uther rapes the eldest daughter, Queen Vivienne de Bois, the night he sacks the castle, resulting in a daughter, Morgana. Vivienne escapes Uther's captivity and marries King Cendred Essetier, in exhile and has a son with him named Mordred. Uther then marries the youngest sister, Ygraine, and has a son with him, Prince Arthur. Arthur later marries his maid, Guinevere Smith, and Morgana marries Lord Merlin Emrys.
> 
> Of Godwyn's children, Helga marries Duke Emeric Hufflepuff, becoming Helga Hufflepuff. Belanor marries Sarlin Slytherin and has a son: Duke Salazar Slytherin. And Prince Gauburn marries Lady Helarie Dinawardine and has no children with her, but does have a bastard son with his lowborn mistress, Gwendolle Gryffindor, named Godric.
> 
> Now, the founders all went on to have children of their own and I do have record of them, but I will not be posting them here due to the character limit on notes.
> 
> If you have any questions, I will answer them in the comments. Thank you!


	13. Obsidian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she returns to her office, she sees that she is not alone. Nurnuk sighs, thinking sadly, So, it’s today then.
> 
> But her mother didn’t raise a daughter without manners, so she calmly walks over to her personal store and pulls a bottle of red wine from the shelves, “Would you like a drink?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of historical rebellions, past character death, major character death, rape, violence, loss of agency, gore, alcohol, and pregnancy.

Mala Pukar burns.

She’s old and bitter and angry, encased in the molten lava of a god that is not her’s, a devil that she’s called up from the deep.  Mala wants to think that it was her utter fear of the Millennium Eye that drove her to call upon Apep, but it’s not.  It was the tempting offer that the god had been whispering in her ear since the moment Reiko Kitamori stepped back into her life.

Mala had seen her at a distance, in the marketplace while she was standing in front of the grocer’s stall, surrounding by her army of chained Unspeakable soldiers.  It had just been for a second; out of the corner of eye, Mala spotted a small, Japanese woman standing on the roof of a building, cloaked in shadow, before she’d disappeared without a sound.  Mala had thought that it had just been her imagination, as witches and wizards made a horrifying cracking sound as they forced themselves between the barriers of time and space.  She’d thought that she was just being paranoid.

At eighty-nine, it was the first time she’d ever slipped up.  It was also her last.

Mala should have sent her soldiers after Kitamori.  Mala should have had them drag her before her, so that she could wrap a small, worn length of robe around her thin wrists, binding her will to Mala’s forever.  If she had, Mala Pukar could have marched on the British and forced them out of her country, kept their wizarding filth out of her land.

Instead, Mala dies when Reiko Kitamori fires a silent Killing Curse from three kilometers away, right through the mudbrick of her shack.  And in the instant of a second before she dies, Mana remembers who she is.

Reiko Kitamori stands before Mala again.  And she  _ hates _ this girl, has hated her from the moment the witch appeared in the UCSF Medical Center.  Amanda’s pushed it down underneath a false sense of caring, let this girl into her car, into her home, the one she shares with Matt.  She’s put on a smile, laughed at her jokes, all while this rage had been simmering just beneath the surface.

_ You killed me, _ she thinks, as Amanda, as Mala, as Mana.   _ I’ll kill you. _

Apep chuckles within her mind, like a lonely candle in a dark room,  _ Let me help you, little girl.  I am yours to command.  Let me slay your enemies for you. _

Mala Pukar grins bloody molten fire.  Amanda Green roars deep and rushes forwards.  High Priestess Mana searches for the small tendril of magic that connects them to the rope on Reiko Kitamori’s arm, and  _ pulls _ .

* * *

Reiko Kitamori is the biggest goddamn idiot on the face of the earth.

_ What the hell am I doing? _  She thinks.  She’d had her chance to take on Pegasus, to tear him down and make him pay for what he’d done to her all those years ago, to rip any information that he had on Gara’s location or that of her child from his slimy hands, but like a god damned coward, she’d frozen.  Just like she’d had in the American Ministry of Magic, the night after she’d slept with Keith for the first time.  Just like she’d had when he’d turned to her after Trista confiscated their evidence from the Archives, slipping back into the role of Plant #1,014.

_ [ _ ~~_ Commander _ _   
_ _ Leader _ ~~

~~_ Orders: _ ~~ _ “You never contact them, you hear me!  Never!” _ _   
_ ~~_ MonsterMonster _ ~~ _ MONSTER _

_ I HATE YOU] _

But Bakura and Atem had stepped in front of her and unleashed a tidal wave of power nearly knocked Reiko off her feet, their eyes glowing divine gold as a third, terrible eye opened on their foreheads.  And in that moment, Reiko had known exactly who they were.

The part of her that sat next to Pete Coppermine (who had once insisted that she call him Misha, back during their time in the Seedling program; an eight year old saying that it was all he’d had left of his life before the Department had pulled him from the arms of his dead parents) during James Andrews’ lecture of ancient mage culture and history has a million questions: how and when and  _ what the fuck _ being the most prominent.  Because if what Reiko saw back there was real, then two of the Three Kings of legend are alive and well, having performed the only successful attempt at revival to ever be recorded.

And now they’re about to face down the man that raped her, because after everything that she’s gone through, Reiko is still too fucking weak to take on a divine weapon.  She hates herself, but she knows that it’s the truth.

So instead, Reiko had followed the Lady  _ fucking _ Pharaoh’s last sane thought before she’d activated the Millennium  _ fucking _ Pendant, and run for the helicopters.

Except, Amanda Green lost control of the ancient Egyptian demon god she’s taken the form of and it had attacked Pete and the rest of her old team.  And Reiko, with her bleeding heart, had stepped in front of them.  But she’d forgotten the binding rope.  That was her first mistake.  Her second was thinking that turning her back on the battle surging between the Kings and Pegasus was a smart idea.

The island shakes, the earth cracking beneath her feet as Reiko feels Mala Pukar’s magic shoot through her veins, tainted by the cold, volcanic power of Apep that travels along with it.  It grabs hold of everything that she is and wrenches her arms around, pointing the tips of her wands to her throat.  Reiko feels her own magic welling up without her command, casting the deadly green curse against her will, when Pete Coppermine - glorious, self sacrificing Misha - grabs hold of both of her wands and snaps them in half.

It’s well intentioned, but only makes the situation worse in the long run.

Unarmed, Reiko Kitamori is still a viable weapon to Amanda Green, so she has Reiko use the broken remains of the wands in her hands as knives, slashing at Pete’s throat, nearly catching him before he stumbled back.  Green closes Reiko’s jaw so she can’t warn him as her body continues to fight on, so Reiko shuts her eyes, goes deep inside of herself, and gets to work.

Mala Pukar had been a deadly, intelligent woman, but she hadn’t had the firepower that Amanda Green currently has access to, which is why Green must have so much trouble controlling the gods that she merges with.  Green had theorized that her staff was too powerful for her to form a solid connection, but that didn’t make any sense - the staff was powered by Green’s own magic and whatever she’s done during her cycle as Mazatl shouldn’t have any effect on the connection between mortal and divine now.  So it must be something else…

_ Think, damn it!  Come on, _ Reiko grits her teeth as Keith, Mook, and Scott join the fray.  Above them Apep slithers forwards, molten lava dripping from between huge stalactite fangs, the ground hissing and quaking with every second she wastes.  As Reiko’s body flings out her leg and breaks Mook’s ribs with a solid kick, she can see Pegasus fighting against gods of his own, barely managing to hold his ground.

_ He’s not as powerful as them, as Mala wasn’t as powerful as Amanda is,  _ and suddenly it hits her.   _ Pegasus has no idea how to use the Eye.  And Mala didn’t know - or simply couldn’t - summon up the gods.  She had no divine backing, so she had to make due with the low-level power that she had access to. _

Reiko thinks back to the briefing she’d been given the day she’s gotten the assignment to kill Pukar.  Blaine Garrish had handed her a file one morning, leaning coolly against the wall just outside Helena Hendrix’s office.  In those first few decades, Reiko had noticed how close he and Hendrix seemed to be, to the point where she’s theorized that they might be lovers, and then slowly watched the two of them grow apart.

Pukar had had little to no contact with mages her entire life, brought on by the British non-magical colonization of India which followed the magical invasion of British conquerors, wiping out any traces of native magical powers before the muggle world could see them on the battlefield.  The only mage that the Department believed that Pukar had ever known had been Kusika Dhebar, a mage fighter in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, who must have passed on his knowledge of rope magic to her.  But Dhebar had died only a few months after meeting Pukar, so whatever training had taken place had been short, rushed, and most of all, incomplete.

But Pukar had taken what she’d learned from him and used it to fight for India’s freedom, taking her longest-held captive at the age of eighteen and holding the witch’s will for nearly fifty years until she died of old age.  Pukar had never had an entire army at her command, but her forces ranged in numbers from two to twenty at any given time.

She’d dedicated her life to her country, went unmarried throughout her entire life, and died so alone that it took three weeks for someone to discover her body.  Reiko almost pities her.

But Reiko had studied Pukar’s ropes (and Dhebar’s, by association) before she began her mission.  She knows them, like the back of her own hand.  And most of all, she knows the magic that flows through them.  Reiko has been testing and poking at her own binding since Amanda Green tied it to her wrist the day she’d surrendered herself into mage custody, and it is utterly  _ identical _ to the ones that she’d seen back then, to the one that she’d seen on Cyril Weller’s wrist after the mage raid on the American Archives.

So that means that Green  _ hadn’t _ improved on Dhebar’s techniques, which means that she hadn’t been taught rope magic in any of her other previous cycles.  Meaning that, despite her increased power due to her current connection with the gods, Green believes that her rope work as Pukar was as good as it could get.

And that means that, unlike Pegasus, Reiko knows how to remove them.

_ [Cyril Weller could have lived had Reiko gotten to him before Pegasus did.  But that would have blown her cover before she was ready to reveal herself.] _

_ [The mission took priority.  So she let Weller die.] _

The only problem is that it takes magic to do so.  And Pete wrecked her wands.

Reiko smirks,  _ I can fix that _ .

Green and Apep had ordered her body to fight her old team, which it’s doing  _ fantastically _ .  Keith isn’t moving, curled up in a heap on the ground.  Mook has pushed barely conscious Scott behind her, but she’s bleeding badly and barely managing to hold her own body upright.  Pete is the only one still fighting, but that’s because Reiko’s subconscious is fighting as much as it can not to hurt him.  

_ He offered me bread and was starved for five days because of it.  We kept each other alive, _ she remembers.   _ I will  _ not _ kill him. _

Reiko dislocates her own jaw forcing it open.

“Wand!” She manages to get out before Apep and Green forces it shut again.  Reiko doesn’t scream, but the pain nearly blinds her.

Pete stumbles in shock at her admission and it nearly costs him his life when she ducks under his guard and almost crushes his windpipe.  But something in him must trust her, some part of Misha that is still alive after almost a year of believing that he was someone else, because Pete slips his wand into her palm and backs up as far as he can.

It’s not a wand that belongs to her, because she hasn’t won it, but Misha had always had wands made of Alder, a helpful and loyal wood.  It’s a gamble, but this wand might just  _ trust _ her to use it, just this once.

_ Please, _ Reiko prays.  She hears a woman’s laughter, bloody and warlike and smelling like sand and death and rot, feels the scorching brush of lion’s fir against her skin.  She grits her teeth and pushes against the binding so hard that her arm snaps, pointing the tip of Misha’s wand at the rope on his wrist, and uses whatever blessing Sekhmet has given her to force Green’s magic off of her.

The flash of light is blinding and the blast knocks them all off their feet.  Reiko hits the dirt next to Pete, and when she groans, it’s of her own volition.  She opens her eyes just in time to see Green’s rope wither away.

Apep and Green roar together, and behind them, the battle of the gods rages on.  But Reiko can deal with that now that she’s got her own will back.  She pushes herself to her feet, grabs her jaw, and pushes it back into its socket, coughing around the blood that leaks from her broken nose.  Beside her, Pete stands and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I knew you couldn’t be all bad,” he says with a sad smile that reminds her so painfully of the friend she’d had in him just over a year ago.  It’s sweet, tender moment between them, which is utterly ruined when Mook tackles the two of them into the ground, nearly avoiding getting burned to death by Apep’s molten fire.

“You absolute  _ idiots _ !” Mook hisses, huddling behind a raised section of earth with a dazed looking Scott and a punch-drunk Keith.  The island shakes again and above them, the sky is cracked open with thousands of lightning bolts streaking in between green-grey, churning clouds.  “Now we’re down to one wand.”

Mook holds up the burnt remains of her own wand and Reiko watches as it blows away in the gale-storm winds.  The island cracks in front of them and Keith grabs Scott just in time to keep him from falling into the ocean with the rest of the ground.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Keith shouts.  Out in the distance, Reiko can see the blinking lights of the mages’ helicopters, hovering on the horizon.  If they can calm Green down, then maybe one of them will come back for them.

“Move!” Scott shouts and they all just manage to dodge another stream of lava that melts the rock they’d hidden behind into the ocean, the water hissing and boiling below.

“Shit!  Shit!   _ Fuck _ !” Keith swears as they run for cover behind one of the crumbling walls.

“Do we still have a wand?” Mook shouts.

“Yes!” Pete says, enthusiastically shaking it in front of himself.

“You!” She rounds on Reiko, “Was the historian bit part of your cover or do you actually know things?”

Reiko blinks, surprised by the turn of events, and manages to nod before ducking down low as Green sends a wave of flame above their heads.

“Alright!   _ That _ is an ancient Egyptian god!  Tell us how to kill it before it kills us!” Mook points towards the great snake with a shaking finger.

Reiko swallows, racking her brain for any information, “Green’s merged with Apep, who’s the Egyptian equivalent of the Devil.  He and Ra fight each other every day so that the sun would rise each morning, and every morning Ra would come out victorious.”

“How’d Ra do that?”  Pete asks.  When Keith gives him an incredulous look, he shrugs, “What?  Maybe we can do something similar?”

“I don’t know about Ra, but the priests would build effigies of him, chop them up, and burn the pieces,” Reiko recites.

“I don’t think we’re gonna be hacking him up with one wand,” Keith growls.

“But we can burn him,” Scott says, gritting his teeth and holding his bloody side.  When they turn to him, he continues, “Ra is a sun god.  We can produce sunlight hot enough to burn him with it.”  When Reiko raises an eyebrow at him, he shrugs, “I must have taken the same classes as you during training.  With James Andrews, correct?”

“That son of a bitch…” Keith hisses, “If we get out of here, he’s a dead man.”

Green lets out another roar, one that shakes the island so much that Reiko can feel the ground give beneath her feet.  This is it.  This is the only chance they’ve got.

They stand.

Apep sees them and crashes forwards, slithering its way across the island and setting fire to everything it comes in contact with.  Pete stretches his wand out in front of him.  Reiko steps in close and wraps her palm around his.  Keith follows, then Mook, and finally Scott.  Reiko glances skyward, looking past the lightning storm above them, into the realm of the gods, and prays for something - anything - from Sekhmet.

The goddess roars above them, defiant to the end, and together they shout, “ _ Lumos Solem! _ ”

The blast of sunlight hits Apep dead in the face, sending the great beast crashing backwards and over the eastern cliff.  The ocean below surges upwards, with boiling water flying nearly a hundred feet high.  Reiko rushes forwards against all good sense, past the scorched earth, and skids to a halt before she reaches the side.

“Amanda!” She shouts into the void, “Amanda, please!”

There’s a grunt beneath her and Reiko throws herself onto the ground, reaching over the side with her good arm.  Clinging to the rock below, Amanda Green hangs on to the cliff face by her fingertips.

“Grab my hand!” Reiko calls out.

Amanda looks up at her, eyes widening when she sees Reiko.

“Why?” She asks, “You know I hate you, so why?!”

“Just take my hand, please,” Reiko begs her.  She doesn’t want to see this girl die again.

But it’s too late.  The island groans, low and deep, and crumbles.  Reiko screams as Amanda’s grip fails, her blond hair billowing around her face as she falls towards the dark waves below.

A black blur shoots across Reiko’s field of vision and Amanda disappears from sight.  Reiko swings her head around just in time to see the Spellcaster disappearing into the clouds on the back of the Black Dragon, arms clutching at Duke Devlin as they speed towards the helicopters.

Someone grabs Reiko’s legs and tugs her away from the cliffside before it slides into the ocean.  Pete pulls her to her feet, shouting, “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“I--  I thought--”  She stammers out before he crushes her in a hug.  Over Pete’s shoulder, he can see Mook staring off at the escaping mages.

She whispers, “Pegasus put up an apparition ward.  We can’t get off the island.”

Reiko realizes then that Mook hadn’t been staring at the helicopters.  She’d been staring at the horizon, for a daybreak she might never see.

But others would.  Gara and her baby would.  And that had to be enough for now.

“They’re not coming back, are they?”  Pete asks, his voice muffled in the crook of Reiko’s neck.

Reiko pulls away from Pete and looks at her friend, eyes red-rimmed from tears, and sees that he is young.

“No,” she says, finally, as brutally honest as the dying island they stood on.  “They’re not.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Queen Nurnuk the Last sees the mages to the front foyer, giving Seto Kaiba her final farewells in the form of a firm embrace.  He promises to contact her as soon as they return home.

She smiles.  She likes him, for all that he is human.

When she returns to her office, she sees that she is not alone.  Nurnuk sighs, thinking sadly,  _ So, it’s today then _ .

But her mother didn’t raise a daughter without manners, so she calmly walks over to her personal store and pulls a bottle of red wine from the shelves, “Would you like a drink?”

The witch, a young girl with dark eyes and dark hair, shrugs, leaning back in Nurnuk’s chair and kicking her feet up onto the desk, “Sure.”

Nurnuk pours them each a glass and hands it to the witch, siping slightly as the human downs her drink like a shot.  Nurnuk doesn’t blink and calmly offers a refill.

“You know, you’ve got to be the politest person I’ve ever assassinated before,” the witch’s lips stretch into something that might have been a smile had it been genuine.

“You’ve assassinated many people before, then?” Nurnuk asks.

The witch shrugs, “Isn’t supposed to be my job, but our usual girl is taking some personal time right now, so I’m having to pick up the slack.”

“Ah,” Nurnuk nods.  “Would it be too much to ask that I might know the name of my murderer?”

“Not really,” the witch leans forwards and offers her hand for a human handshake.  “Trista Latner.  I’d say nice to meet you, but considering the circumstances…”

“Likewise,” Nurnuk sits down in the seat opposite to Latner and takes her hand, trying not to look too uncomfortable.  While humans may consider this gesture a form of casual greeting, to goblins, the touching of hands was usually reserved for your most intimate lovers.  Most humans either didn’t know this or didn’t care.  Nurnuk suspects that Latner might be one of that later group.  “So, why now?”

Latner shrugs again, “Look, it’s nothing that you actually  _ did _ .  You’ve suspected that we’ve been slowly picking off the goblin royal line for years now.  I’m just the lucky girl who got to do the job.”

“Did you kill my did sisters?  Allus and Ulnok?”  Nurnuk asks suddenly, unable to hold it in.  “Did you kill my mother?”

“I did.  All of her sisters, too.  And their mother.  And their father before them, as well,” Latner says, sickeningly honest.

_ Let her see that you’re angry.  Just like you let Pharaoh Seth see your fear, _ she remembers her mother’s lessons.   _ Let them see what you need them to see. _

“But no one beyond that,” Latner continues on.  “I wasn’t part of the Department to pick off Filgus and those who came before him.  But, wow, it never fails to amaze me that you lot still exist after all these years.  Back in my early years, the schools always taught that the goblin royal family died with King Graggor a hundred or so years ago.  And yet here you are, the last of the line of Lurtet.  This is a historical moment, right here.  Maybe I should write another book?  How about  _ Children of the Goldsinger _ ?  That’s got a nice ring to it, right?”

Latner sighs, pulling her feet off of Nurnuk’s desk and drinking the rest of her wine, “Well, it’s been nice talking to you-- seriously, I didn’t get to do this much with you sisters.  But I really do want you to know that it wasn’t personal.  Ever since the mages started coming back in force, we’ve had way too much on our plate to have to hold up our end of the bargain with your kind.  You understand, right?”

“No.  But then again, I’m a goblin, and you’re just a human,” Nurnuk says, setting down her drink.

Latner sneers, “See, now you remind me of your sisters.”

The witch points her wand at Nurnuk.  And the Goblin Queen laughs.

Latner pauses, “What?  What’s so funny?”

“You humans are all the same.  Your noses are so short that even when you manage to look beyond them, you can never see the whole truth,” Nurnuk says when her laughter dies down.

“What are you talking about?”  Latner growls.

“You know, I’m honestly surprised Seth never figured it out, considering his parentage,” she leans back in her chair, rocking it ever so slightly.  “A bit of a disappointment really.”

_ “What the hell are you talking about? _ ” The witch shouts.

“What do you know about the Legend of the Three Kings, specifically surrounding that of their origin?”  Nurnuk asks, letting her hand finally show.

“What has that got to do with anything?” Latner spits, the tip of her wand shaking from rage.

“The Lady Pharaoh’s father, Pharaoh Aknamkanon, was one of a set of  _ twins _ .  Supposedly, right after their birth, the royal midwife forgot which one was which, so they had no idea which boy was the eldest and therefore, the old Pharaoh’s heir,” Nurnuk explains.  “My mother, Queen Fradlast, was always a huge fan of the stories that sprouted from the legend, and she told me and my sisters that story every night before we went to bed.  She always made us guess which brother was the real heir.  Personally, I always guessed Aknadin.”

She can see the gears of Latner’s mind spinning, trying to work it all out.  Nurnuk grins the moment she sees the witch understand.

“You… You aren’t...”

“My mother gave birth to a set of twin girls, the first in nearly eight generations.  And she was smart.  She told the midwife to take my sister and I away, to swap us, and never tell her which one was the eldest.  The woman did as she was told before killing herself, so no one would ever know the truth,” the Goblin Queen sneers.

“But you are Queen.  You were crowned,” Latner shouts, grappling for any purchase she could find.

“Actually, I wasn’t.  Not in the official ceremony anyways.  My sister went sat through that dull affair while I had a much more private crowning a few hours later.  You see, we’ve swapped in and out of each other’s lives so often that hardly anyone can tell us apart.  Even Seth couldn’t tell the difference between the two of us, and we swapped twice with him.” Nurnuk laughs.

“Your husband--”

“Is my sister’s husband, as well.  He’s the only one who could tell the difference between the two of us.  We’re his Nurnuks and he is our Srags, our trusted protector,” Nurnuk smiles sadly.  “I alerted him to your presence when I opened this bottle,” she points to the opened vintage on the table.  “Srags never had a talent for metal or stonework, but he can do wonders with glass.”

“And yet your  _ trusted protector _ isn’t exactly bursting in here to save you, is he?” Latner grins savagely.

“He won’t,” Nurnuk shakes her head.  “He’ll be doing his duty, getting Queen Nurnuk to safety.”

“ _ You are the Queen! _ ” Latner screams futilely, “You are the elder of the two daughters!”

“Maybe I am,” Nurnuk shrugs.  “In which case, the power of the goblin race will transfer to my sister and she will carry within her the magic of Lurtet, until the day she dies and can pass it down to her children.  Or maybe I’m not, and my sister has always carried the Goldsinger’s power within her, and my death with serve to buy just enough time to hide Queen Nurnuk in a place where the Department can never reach her.  Either way, we win.”

“ _ Avada Kadavra! _ ” Latner screams in frustration, her wand flashing green.

* * *

Queen Nurnuk the Last dies victorious with a mad grin on her face.

In the secret vault deep beneath Gringotts Bank, Queen Nurnuk the Last raises her head as she feels the connection that she has with her sister flicker and die.

“It is done,” she says, and she allows a single tear to roll down her cheek.  Her husband walks beside her in the dark, holding her hand tightly.  A small glowing light passes by them, casting their faces with shadows before floating onwards, illuminating Kuirmet, who walks before them.

“We will remember her,” Srags weeps more openly than her.  Nurnuk and her sister had been prepared to die for each other since birth.  Srags had only been let in on the secret the night they’d married each other nine years ago.

“We will avenge her,” Nurnuk vows, the haze of a vision swirling before her.  In it, she sees the Daughter of Albion and Amane Andrews, standing together in the Great Hall of Camelot.   _ Destiny has such a funny way of coming to fruition _ , she thinks bittersweetly.

Their path takes a sharp turn upwards and Nurnuk’s stomach churns at the thought of her sister lying dead in their office.  She rests a hand over the slight curve of her belly and knows that it was all worth it.

“If it’s a girl, we should name it after her,” Srags says, rubbing his thumb against her palm.

Nurnuk chuckles wetly, “Isn’t it a bit self centered, naming a child after yourself?”

“Nurnuk, she was not you.  And you are not her,” Srags implores.  “Her sacrifice will give our baby life.  It would be the greatest honour we could possibly give her.”

“She would have been a wonderful mother,” Nurnuk says.

“She would have the child rotten,” Srags laughs.  “She would have snuck them sweets before supper and let them get away with far, far too much.”

“She would have,” Nurnuk nods, a small grin appearing on her face.

“Your Majesty,” Kuirmet addresses them.  “We are almost at the exit.”

Nurnuk nods, gripping Lurtet’s treasure hard in her hand, “Very well.  Shall we?”

The tunnel opens up onto the surface and Nurnuk steps out into the sunlight for the first time in her entire life.  She blinks, raising a hand to shield her eyes, and breathes in the fresh air.

“It’s beautiful,” Nurnuk whispers, admiring the architecture of the muggle structures that lined the streets, the metal and wood and stone that went into building the modern land of Britain.  She wishes that her sister could have been here to see it.

A muggle automobile speeds towards them on the road and Kuirmet sticks his thumb out so that the driver can see them.  The van slows down and comes to a complete stop beside them.  The window rolls down and Seto Kaiba leans out the window with a very confused look upon his face.

“Your Majesty?  What…?  Why are you here?”

Nurnuk looks him in the eye and allows him to see the fear that she needs him to see, “The Department just made an attempt on my life.  We barely managed to escape.”

“We seek sanctuary in the city of San Francisco,” Srags implores.

Seto blinks, scanning his eyes over Nurnuk, before Pharaoh Seth nods, “Of course.  Get in.”

Nurnuk clambers into the backseat of the van, while Catherine the driver comments about how Serenity Wheeler had made a good call when she said they should leave their old car behind and steal the mini-van parked beside them.  When they pull out onto the road, Seth looks back through the seats at Nurnuk, presses two fingers to his lips and draws them down his neck in the goblin symbol of sympathy.

_ He knows _ , she thinks, glancing over at the girl who had once been Shaleona.   _ She must have figured it out when she touched Kuirmet and told Seth last night. _

She flicks her wrist at her temple in thanks.  Seth nods, offers her a tiny smile, and turns back to stare at the road.

And finally, because she is safe, Nurnuk allows herself to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in this chapter, it is revealed at there are a pair of Nurnuk's working together to ensure that at least one of them would make it. In order to not reveal who was the eldest, I'm going to refer to them as Pregnant!Nurnuk and NotPregnant!Nurnuk as opposed to Nurnuk One and Two.
> 
> The first time we see Nurnuk in the series is during her introduction with Amane. This is NotPregnant!Nurnuk.
> 
> Afterwards, we see them through Seto. NotPregnant!Nurnuk is the one greets the mages in the office and signs the contract between the goblins and the mages of San Francisco. Then, during their meeting with Bill, we actually see a swap between the two of them when NotPregnant!Nurnuk performs a Notice-Me-Not charm (Seto says that he forgets that she's there and that's because she's *not*). It's Pregnant!Nurnuk that takes Seto down to see Luggus's treasure.
> 
> Finally, it is NotPregnant!Nurnuk that swaps back in the next day and says goodbye to Seto and the mages. She is killed by Trista Latner.


	14. Point of No Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But she doesn’t talk about the near half century that she - Yuugi - had spent clutching the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle’s hand, standing amidst the blazing power of the Destroyer’s divine magic, being ripped apart and pulled back together. Yuugi had cried, Yuugi had screamed, Yuugi had pleaded for it to end, for everything to just stop and then--
> 
> Then the Spirit had cupped her face with withered, ashen hands and brought Yuugi’s eyes up to meet her empty, hollow sockets, and kissed her with lips that tasted like death, tasted like life. And Yuugi had remembered the moment where she’d asked Duke Devlin to give her a knife, how she had been ready to set aside everything that she was for so that those that she loved could have a few more seconds of life, and knows that she could continue on, because Atem had work to do and people to save on the other side of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of past minor character death, violence, gore, slut shaming, misogyny, pedophilia, hypothermia, drowning, suicidal thoughts, forced suicide, bombings, and murder.

Divine weapons do not work on each other.  This is a simple, indisputable fact.

There is no known reason for why this is, only the theories and guesses that have been made since the first set was created.  Aknadin believed that it was a fail safe created by the Great Gods themselves, who knew that one day he planned to turn the Millennium Items upon his brother and wished to quell some of the havoc he would wreap.  But this turned out to be false, as those that survived his wars would discover, for the battles between the Item wielders nearly brought the Egyptian empire to its knees.

Others hypothesized that it was less so that the weapons could be used against each other, but more that they could never be used in conjunction with one another.  However, the Peverell brothers disproved this theory, as they used their set of weapons, the Deathly Hallow in deadly synchronicity.  The Peverells also proved that a single person could wield multiple weapons at the same time, though it would come a the cost of everything that they were.  So that couldn’t be it.

The only person who has come closest to the discovering the true answer is the Head of the Department of Mysteries, a timeless, ancient woman with blue eyes and red hair.  She came to the conclusion, after a millennia of studying the divine, magic, and everything that the world had to offer, that gods sometimes created rules for no other reason than to watch humanity try to scramble about trying to figure out a way around them.  Gods, she reasons, just like to fuck with us.

As it turns out, all of them are right.

The divine weapons, or at least the idea of them, were created by the Great Gods - all four of them.  The Father of Light, god of the physical realm, wished not to see his world destroyed, and the Mother of Darkness, goddess of the mystics, did not want to unleash such an unstoppable power upon the earth, created the rule.  But it was Zorc and his sister, Horakhty, that created the loophole.

Divine weapons do not work  _ on. each. other _ .  The rule states nothing about what divine weapons could do to the environments around them.

So while the Mother and the Father tried to ensure that we would never use the Millennium Items and the Deathly Hallows to help or hinder another wielder directly, the Destroyer and the Creator simply decided that it would be more fun to watch humanity do what it does best: find a way.

* * *

 

Bakura had talked with Atem briefly about the moments between when Ryou Andrews touched the Ring for the first time and when he and the Spirit had combined, about the nearly fifty years that the two of them had spent within the Ring battling the body of Zorc the Destroyer.  He’d been fidgety in a way that betrayed how uncomfortable he’d been with the topic, but he’d powered through regardless, knowing that she was probably the only person alive who knew what he’d gone through.  Atem had held his hand, listening closely as they’d lain next to each other in bed, but is ashamed to say that couldn’t return the favour.

Maybe it’s because she’d been so new to this state, this combined form where she was Yuugi Mutuo and the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle and the Lady Pharaoh of legend.  Maybe it’s because she’s always found it hard to talk about her feelings in a way that the King Commander never had.  Maybe it’s just because she’s scared.

But she doesn’t talk about the near half century that she - Yuugi - had spent clutching the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle’s hand, standing amidst the blazing power of the Destroyer’s divine magic, being ripped apart and pulled back together.  Yuugi had cried, Yuugi had screamed, Yuugi had pleaded for it to end, for everything to just stop and then--

Then the Spirit had cupped her face with withered, ashen hands and brought Yuugi’s eyes up to meet her empty, hollow sockets, and kissed her with lips that tasted like death, tasted like life.  And Yuugi had remembered the moment where she’d asked Duke Devlin to give her a knife, how she had been ready to set aside everything that she was for so that those that she loved could have a few more seconds of life, and knows that she could continue on, because Atem had work to do and people to save on the other side of this.

But then her grandfather was gone, and Atem is left in a world with no ties back to who she’d been as Yuugi.  Solomon Mutuo and the Turtle Game Shop and the apartment that they’d shared above it had disappeared and there is nothing,  _ nothing  _ left of her, not in San Francisco - only a few cousins, from a city she’d never visited, from a family who’d never given her mother the time of day after she came back from Vegas with a swollen belly.

Yuugi has tried to be the better person and not to hate them, just as she’d tried not to hate her grandfather for never looking at her and  _ seeing _ Yuugi.  It’s one of the few things that she’d failed at in her entire life.

And now Solomon Mutuo is dead.

Atem finds his body amongst the corpses that Maximillion Pegasus left in his wake, eyes wide open in shock, his jaw slack and his muscles lax.  The power of the Millennium Puzzle flows through her, burning hot and freezing cold all at once, the blood and flesh and bones of those trapped within it screaming out for vengeance.

_ It shouldn’t be shocking, _ she thinks logically.   _ It really shouldn’t be. _

Yet it was.

She pauses, eyes glowing gold as a blood red cloak of magic surrounds her, and reaches down, gently touching his cheek.   _ He’s not too cold yet _ , she rationalizes.   _ It’s like he’s only got a chill. _

It’s not the first time she’s seen a dead body.  She doubts that it will be the last.  But the death of Solomon Mutuo, of Shimon… and Atem, she--

She screams.

* * *

 

At exactly 3:00 am SST, a series of events occur around the world.

A man frantically coughs into a napkin and stares at the blood stain that he leaves when he pulls it away, desperately thinking,  _ There’s not enough time. _

A woman, very much alive, gasps and clutches her neck, lurching forwards as the car she’s in skids to a stop.  The driver, very much dead, parks the car with shaking hands and turns around to check that she is not hurt.

Albus Dumbledore’s hand jerks and crashes into the inkwell on his desk, splattering the black liquid onto the robes of the Confederation wizard beside him.

A shattered mess of a soul screams and howls, and Quirinus Quirrell buries his face in his arms to keep from crying out in pain.

A diary belonging to a former Hogwarts student flips its way across the room and smacks itself against the wall.

A mystical ring jumps into the air and rolls towards the kitchen of the rundown hut, scurrying across the rotting floorboards.

A cup, hidden within a Gringotts vault, hisses and shakes, quivering it’s way to the bottom of the pile it lays on.

A beautiful diadem leaps upwards, sending the books that it was trapped beneath flying into the air.

A boy with green eyes and a lightning scar yelps, his arms flailing, and he knocks the frying pan and sends the bacon he’s cooking for his guardians falling to the floor.  He closes his eyes, lips tight, and waits for his uncle to start shouting.

And finally, a woman with red hair and blue eyes holds up her hand, halting Trista Latner angry rant.  “The island is lost,” she says, and calls for Blaine Garrish.

* * *

 

Keith has no idea why he thought that he could kill the Thief King and has no idea why he continues to think that he might have a chance, because the island is crumbling beneath his very feet as he watches Bakura, the Lady Pharaoh, and Pegasus going at each other.  They’re impossibly powerful, so much so that Keith can  _ feel their magic in his goddamn lungs _ , and he’s standing there without a wand or a weapon of any kind.

The two Kings bare down on Pegasus, pushing him back with lightning and wind, ripping any defense he has to shreds before he can even get it up.  The man that Keith had once thought to be so powerful is being pushed farther and farther back, his face so pale that it glows in the moonlight.

“Come on!” Mook pulls him out of his daze, dragging him inside the remains of headquarters and towards where he’s praying the broom closet still is.

He’d gotten the idea after watching the mages fly over the horizon on their dragons and helicopters just now.  The three wizard-born children from Ryou’s cell had stolen a pair of broomsticks and used them to fly to San Francisco, so there was still a chance that they could do the same.

“We don’t even need to make it to the mainland,” Kitamori adds.  “They’re using a huge aircraft carrier as a base.  It’s only a few miles off the coast.  If we can just make it to that--”

“You seriously think that they’re going to just let us fly onto that thing?” Mook shouts over the unearthly sounds of the gods doing battle.  “Green made it pretty clear that we weren’t wanted.”

“But they took wizards with them.  The prisoners from the investigation,” Keith frowns.

“Leverage.  If they return US civilians that we’d taken as captors, they could probably negotiate a ceasefire with the American Ministry and pin the blame on us,” Scott continues.

“Hey,” Coppermine says suddenly.  “Isn’t the Millennium Spellbook somewhere on the island?  Could we use that to buy passage onto their base?”

Keith honestly doesn’t know if he’s ever heard smarter words come out of Coppermine’s mouth.

They divide and conquer.  Mook, Coppermine, and Scott go off to find the broomsticks, while Kitamori leads the way into the lower levels where the Spellbook should be kept.  Most of the hallways have collapsed in on themselves and it takes everything that Keith is to not scream in agony as his strained muscles pull out all the stops to get them to where they need to go.

Luckily, Pete’s wand trusts Kitamori enough to let her use it to help them clear the blocked pathways and move the dead when needed.  Above them, the earth cracks and crumbles, barely keeping itself together.

“In here,” Kitamori says, kicking down the door to the room that holds their ticket out of her.  Inside, the Millennium Spellbook is encased in glass, a simple leather bound tome of aging papyrus.  A charm causes the pages to flip every so often, revealing ink scrawled in an ancient text that seemed to change every time he looked at it.

Keith breaked the glass rather than look for spells to disarm, figuring that it literally could not get any worse from here on out.  He grabs the book, closes it, and lets his gaze linger on the Eye of Horus painted in gold leaf on the cover.  It seems to stare back at him.

“Let’s go,” Kitamori says, but he almost doesn’t listen.  Keith opens the book and flips through the pages, until he stops on one written in  _ complete English, what the fuck? _

“Keith, come on!” Kitamori shouts against, raising the wand to the ceiling and casting a spell to keep the roof from caving in on them.  “We’ve got to go now!”

“In the Labs… in London…” Keith whispers hoarsely, his eyes racking over the notes in the book, “There’s a room dedicated to the study of time.  There’s a crystal Bell Jar, where they put living things in to watch the effects that repeated exposure to time has on them…”

Kitamori swallows hard, “It’s said that the Spellbook contains every secret of magic that could and ever would exist, that it only shows its secrets to those with a question that cannot be solved otherwise.”

“Did you know?” He asks softly.  Then, when she doesn’t answer, he shouts, shoving the Spellbook in her face.  “Did you know?!”

Keith thinks that he’s crying, that he can’t take much more.

Kitamori reads, her eyes flicking across the pages, and then looks down.  It’s all the answers that he needs.

“Why did you fuck me?” He shouts, “Because of this?  Because of who my mother is?”

Kitamori shakes her head, “No.”

“You seriously expect me to believe--”

“Keith.  I fucked you because I’ve got a thing for blondes.  That’s it.  I promise.”

“But you knew!   _ You knew _ !”

“Keith, I swear to god that I’ll explain everything once we get off this rock, but now is not the time,” Kitamori grabs him by the collar and forces him down to her eye level.  She’s so much stronger now that she’s not pretending to be some waifish little girl.

“How the fuck can I even trust you?” He pushes her away.  Keith doesn’t know what his plan is here, but he has to get away from Kitamori right fucking now.

“Because I’m the best chance you have of getting out of here,” Kitamori tries to reason with him, but Keith honestly isn’t sure that he doesn’t want to go down with the island right now.

Then, before either of them can do anything, the room around them explodes in a blast of energy and magic.  Together, they fall, the earth giving way to salt water that relentlessly rushes in.

Keith’s lungs burn as he holds onto what little air he has left.  He can’t breathe.   _ He can’t breathe _ .  He panics and tries to inhale, only for his lungs to be filled with water.  His entire body seems to seize as his vision gives way to black as skeletal hands grab shoulders, twisting him around by a hook in his navel.

He wakes up just as Kitamori breaches the surface, holding him close and treading water to save their lives.  Coppermine’s wand is gone and Keith can barely comprehend anything more than how much pain he’s in, the freezing water feeling like a million tiny knives stabbing at his skin.  Kitamori is screaming at the top of her lungs for anyone to see them, to help them.  There’s blood in the water.

Something bright shines in the corner of Keith’s eyes and for a moment he thinks that it’s the sun.  But when he turns his head, all he can see is the remains of the island, a molten pile of burning ash, the fires shooting so high that they pierce the clouds overhead.

_ I can see the stars _ , Keith thinks blearily.

Coppermine finds them a few seconds later, diving down on his broom and pulling them from the water.  Keith’s hands are turning blue around the Spellbook and his jaw is clattering with how much he’s shivering.  He watches as Mook and Scott work together to get Kitamori out of the water.  Her entire left side is covered in blood.

“She must have splinched herself forcing her way through the wards!” Mook cries over the howling winds.  “We have to get her to a healer!”

“Which way to the mage ship?” Coppermine yells, as darkness slowly encroaches on his vision again.

Mook says something else, but he can’t hear her.  Keith closes his eyes, lays his head on Coppermine’s shoulder, and wants it all to end.

* * *

 

The island, much like every island in the Pacific Ocean, is located on top of a volcano.  And the Puzzle was an amplifier, a modifier, and a dampener all in one.  So Atem uses it to shatter the wizarding magic keeping this one from turning active, shoot her magic directly the lava pool that exists deep below the crust, and forces it  _ up _ with the power of an atomic bomb.

The island is vaporized around her, but Atem shields herself by seeing the energy that exists between the neutrons within the magma and yanking it away, cooling the molten rock almost instantly.  She does the same around Bakura, saving his life, and leaves Pegasus to fend for himself.

Solomon is gone, turned to ash with the rest the world around them, but Atem is nearly blind with hate.

She transforms into the Sky Dragon.

Not all the way.  There’s still a block on her, a leftover curse from Zorc, who refused to give back everything that the Spirit had been within the Puzzle for all those years.  But it’s enough.  Atem’s hair turns to bright, red feathers, her torso stretches upwards and outwards, coiling in on itself like a massive serpent.  Talons sprout from her fingers and toes, black and predatory.  Her mouth hardens into a cruel, hooked beak and massive red, feathered wings burst from her back, shredding her shirt.  She tears open the falling bubble of obsidian in a shock of lightning and launches herself at the energy source she knows to be Pegasus.

Beside her, Bakura does the same.  His skin sheds to reveal pale grey scales as fangs erupt from his lipless mouth.  Black bat wings erupt from his shoulder blades as a pair of long horns sprout from his temples.  The air around him swirls dangerously overhead as he becomes all of the Demon Snake that the Destroyer will allow, the Millennium Ring glowing ominously around his neck.

The part of her brain that’s always analyzing things, that always manages to keep calm, takes him in, there amidst the flames and the night, and thinks,  _ No wonder they thought us to be gods. _

Pegasus floats in the middle of it all, a magical shield blurring the air around him.  He opens his mouth and points his wand.  

Atem banks right, letting the curse speed over her shoulder.  She returns with her own barrage of lightning, opening her mouth and letting the crackling power within her free.  Pegasus flies upwards, but is met with Bakura, who flies directly through him and wreakes his insides with his poisoned fangs and claws.  Pegasus screams, his flying spell faltering.  He catches himself before he fall face first into the molten furnace beneath them.

Together, they clashed, again and again, each pushing harder to see which one would break first.  The waves hissed beneath them as they met magma, boiling and releasing steam that could render flesh from bone.  Jets of lava spewed around them, red and yellow and gold, infinitely hot and burning.  Thunder and lightning sang above them and wind rocked below.  The storm raged onwards, spitting rain and hail from the heavens.

Pegasus was slowing down.  With each bout, he got lower and lower in the sky, his moves a little more sluggish.   _ He’s feeling the weight of the Eye _ , she reasons.   _ He hasn’t stopped using it since he put it in. _

“Give up,” Bakura roars.  “You know you can’t last much longer.”

“No!” Pegasus screams.  “No!  I was-- I am-- Do you know who I am?  What I can do?  I have the Eye!  I can--”

“You are killing yourself with it, because you don’t know what you’re doing with it,” Atem hisses, almost disappointed.  From here, their enemy almost looks pathetic.

“I know--  Aknadin used it to fight you,” Pegasus spits.  “He was unstoppable!”

“Because he knew when to turn the damn thing off,” Atem shouts.  “Give up.”

“And do what?  You’ll let me live?!” Pegasus snears.  “What did that whore Plant trade for you to do her bidding?  Did she let you fuck her, too, the little slut?”

It takes everything that Atem is not to kill him, “Where is Gara Grindelwald’s baby?”

Pegasus’s face goes blank, and then he laughs, cold and maniacal, “Gara Grindelwald’s welp?!  Are you kidding me?  That’s what this is about?  Don’t be ridiculous?”  He pauses, as if weighting for them to join in on the joke.  “You’re serious.  You’re actually serious.  Merlin, the slut is as dumb as she looks.

“Gara Grindelwald’s son is Keith Howard.”

She sees Bakura flinch, a look of shock passing over his face before he clamps down on it entirely.  

Pegasus continues to laugh, “If she’d just looked between her legs, she might have figured it out!  Well, it’s too late now.  Keith drowned the moment you blew up this island.  It’s what he deserves--” 

Bakura sends out a blast of wind that catches Pegasus right in the chest, knocking him clean out of the sky.

Together the shoot downwards, streaking towards the falling Pegasus, who screaming and crying and praying for mercy.  Atem is faster so she reaches him first, opening her beak and biting into the meat of his torso, thinking the entire time,  _ The gods don’t care about you. _

She flings him upwards for Bakura, who flaps his wings to form a great gale wind that slams into him with enough force to shatter every bone in Pegasus’s body.  Atem catches him with her taloned feet, claws digging into what’s left of his shoulders, and shakes him until his wand falls from his grasp.

_ He’s given up _ , she realizes when he doesn’t even fight anymore.  Atem can feel his life slipping away, feels the neural pathways in his body starting to shut down and refuses to let him go.  The Puzzle blazes again, amplifying her own powers, and she forces  _ life _ back into him.  It’s cruel.  It’s blasphemous.  It feels so fucking gratifying.

Together, she and Bakura fly, screeching across the night sky towards the  _ Cerulean _ .  They crash down onto the deck, rolling with their momentum.  Atem keeps a hold on Pegasus the entire time, knowing that if she lets go, he’s going to die.

She is not done with him yet.

Bakura slams one scaled hand over Pegasus’s mouth, keeping him from screaming as he reaches down over his face with the other.  The man shakes uncontrollably as the Thief King shoves his fingers into the socket of his right eye and yanks the Millennium Eye from it’s depths.

Then, Atem reaches into his body, into the very sequence of chromosomes that make up who he is, and sees what makes him a wizard.  A single string of protein, tied together in a way that seems manufactured, gives him the ability to use a wand.  Atem grabs hold of it and tears it to shreds.

“Keep him tethered here,” she growls at him, watching viciously as Pegasus’s blood runs down Bakura’s wrist, how his fingers clench around the golden eye.  “He cannot die yet.”

People are congregating around them, whispering and watching, but Atem doesn’t concentrate on them.  She detaches her talons and lets Bakura take over, using the Millennium Ring to keep Pegasus alive better than she could.  Atem walks forwards, awkwardly on two legs with inverted knees at first, then more steadily down on four, her elongated torso covered in the red feathers of the Sky Dragon.

_ Let him suffer.  Let him writhe in pain.  Then, when he is of no use to me any longer,  _ Atem thinks viciously, staring at the three incoming dots on the horizon,  _ Then he can die. _

* * *

 

Reiko blinks awake and sees the white ceiling of the  _ Cerulean _ ’s medical bay.  She has no idea how she got here and everything hurts.

She sighs,  _ It could be worse. _

She does a quick inventory for her body.  All of her limbs and digits are still attached, but there’s an awkward numbness in her right ring and pinky fingers.  Bandages are wrapped around her middle and when she presses gently, she can feel the indents of stitches along her stomach.  Her legs are stiff and there is a pair of crutches leaning against her bed, clearly meant for her.

Sitting in the chair at the foot of her bed is Amanda Green.

“Where…” Reiko says, but her throat is so dry that it comes out as a gasp.  Green makes no move to help her, which makes Reiko wonder if any of the preppishly-happy personality that she’d displayed in San Francisco had been real at all.

It takes her a few minutes to try and speak again, “Where is my team?”

“They’re alive,” Green answers, staring her down with eyes like green chunks of ice.  She is still one of the most beautiful people Reiko has ever seen.  “Keith Howard is in the brig, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Turns out he killed a family member of someone on our side,” Green explains.  “Also, he tried to kill Bakura when they landed, who is a lot more merciful than I’d expected he’d be.”

“You got the Spellbook?” Reiko asks, knowing that it’s probably the only reason why no one had been thrown overboard.  Green nods.

“Why did you kill me?” Green asks instead.  Reiko raises an eyebrow.

“Why did I kill Mala Pukar?” She snorts, “Because I was ordered to.”

“And why did you try to save me on the cliff?” Green continues.

Reiko sighs, feeling like she’s had this conversation already, “Because I like you.  Against my better judgement.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Reiko repeats.  Her head lolls to the side, “Why did you do what you did in India?”

Green pauses, looking a bit surprised, “I fought for my country.”

“And I fought for the Department of Mysteries,” Reiko rolls her eyes.  “I mean,  _ why _ did you use rope magic the way you did?  To control people?”

Green looks down at her feet, wringing her hands and nervously tapping her heel to the ground.  It takes her a while, but she does eventually answer.

“You knew… who I was?  Who taught me?  Before the fighting began?” Green asks.  Reiko nods.  “Do you know what happened to Tivra Dhebar?”

She does.  Tivra Dhebar, daughter of the man who supposedly taught Mala Pukar everything she knew, had been a non-magical fighter in the Indian mage resistance.  She’d died young, having been Imperiused into strapping explosives to herself and causing the explosion that killed twenty people, including her own father.

Then it clicks and all Reiko can say is, “ _ Oh _ .”

“At first, it was to avenge her.  I tracked down everyone that had a hand in it and I bond them to me, so they’d know what they’d done,” Green says, her voice hauntingly low.  “But after awhile… it stopped being about Tivra.  I did it because I was good at it.  I did it because I liked it.”

Reiko swallows, feeling hollow.   _ You killed almost five thousand people for her, over the course of seventy-four years. _

“I’m not sorry for what I did.  I’m sorry that I was stupid enough to expose myself so that you could kill me before I was done,” Green says, a crooked smile making its way onto her face.   “What do you think of that, Reiko Kitamori?”

Reiko closes her eyes.  She’s so tired, “Honestly?”

“Please.”

“It’s a bit of a relief.”

Green looks like she’s been sucker punched, “What?”

“After everything that you’ve done, everything that you’d seen…  After all that, you can walk away, even for just a moment, to live the life you do,” with a family, a lover, a favourite shawarma place, an education,  _ everything _ \- “then there’s hope for me.”  Reiko grins, feeling every ounce of pain that she’s in, “You really are a legend, you know?”

Green just stares at her, mouth hanging open and eyes wide.  Then, like she’s fighting every moment, her shoulder start to shake and hysterical laughter works its way out of her and--

It’s probably the first honest thing Reiko has ever seen out of her since they met.

“I hate you,” Green says, with tears in her eyes.  “I understand you, but,  _ fuck _ , do I hate you.”

Reiko thumps her head back onto her pillow as disappointment slowly curls in her gut.  Amanda Green is  _ unfairly _ attractive, “Oh.  Good.  I feel so much better now.”

“I try,” Green snorts.  “Look, I’ve got to check on some of the others.  When you get the chance, you should visit their majesties.  They’ve got a present for you.”

_ Present? _ Reiko blinks, and then a wave of dread falls down upon her.   _ Oh. _  Pegasus.

They’ve got him.  It’s… She should have expected this.  Of course Bakura and Atem would keep up their end of the deal.  Reiko pushes herself up in the bed and Amanda still doesn’t move, just watches her struggle to pull her feet over the side of the bed.  The floor is cold against the soles of her feet, swaying slightly with the current.

She grabs the crutches and pulls herself up.

“Any hints as to where I should be going?” Reiko asks Amanda, who shrugs.

“No idea.  I’m just the messenger,” she answers before standing and walking away.

_ Figures _ , Reiko smirks and heads out.

The medical bay is filled to the brim, each bed containing someone who seems to be younger and more injured than the last.  Reiko limps past Weevil Underwood, getting a nasty looking gash stitched up,, as well as Mokuba Kaiba, who seems to be in a post-op coma.  There’s a clean bandage wrapped around the stump where his lower leg used to be, the cut made just above the knee.

And on and on it goes, until a tall man with a kind expression stops her.  Reiko recognizes him as Matthew Jacques, famed Spellcaster who’d brought down the forty-seven Unspeakables who’d tried to capture him in the middle of a university exam without even breaking a sweat.

“You must be Reiko Kitamori,” he says, clutching the mobile IV drip he’d been provided like a cane.  “My sister mentioned you.”

“Sister?” Reiko asks, because there had been no record of any siblings in the file that the Department had provided on him.

“Amanda.  And, well, we’re half-siblings,” Jacques tells her and,  _ holy shit _ , two Spellcasters in the same family, especially of their caliber?  That’s absolutely terrifying.  “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Jacques actually holds out his hand for her to shake, which she does eventually take because she is not rude.

“I’m looking for Bakura and Atem,” she stammers, still kind of taken aback by him.

“Hmmm?  Oh, well, I think they’re just this way,” Jacques turns like he’s going to escort her, Reiko is so not ready for all of this.

Jacques leads her out of the medical bay and down a series of hallways.  Every so often, they take a break, leaning against the walls to catch their breath.  On one of these breaks, Reiko just says, “Mahad.”

And Jacques just takes it in stride, “Not many people know enough about the legend to even recognize that name.  I’m impressed.”

“Oh, I got it right?  Good.  Because my first guess was Seth,” she laughs nervously.

“No.  No.  Seto’s Seth, not me.”

Reiko blinks, “Wait.  Seto  _ Kaiba _ ?!”

Jacques nods and chuckles softly until they’re ready to move again.

She gets why he’s humouring her.  Because in a moment, she’s going to step into the same room as Pegasus, and she wants to take some form of joy with her.

“Here we are,” Jacques says, all too soon.  The door is made of sheet metal, like everything else on this ship.  It’s too ordinary, too simple.  Reiko has never been more terrified in her entire life.

Jacques puts his hand on her shoulder and she looks up into the eyes of the Spellcaster that nearly sacrificed himself to keep as many people on the island alive as possible, “If you need anything, I am right outside.  Alright?”

Reiko nods.  As scared as she is, she doesn’t think that she’s had so many people in her corner in her entire life.

She grips the crutches so hard that the wood begins to squeak, and then she walks through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a warning, the next chapter is what I call the Kitamori Flashback chapter and will include several scenes that could be uncomfortable to some readers - hell, at one point, I was so uncomfortable that I had to walk away for almost a week before returning. There will be the standard warnings at the beginning of each chapter, so you will know what to expect in the chapter. Also, as of the next chapter, Strike's rating will increase to Explicit.


	15. Voices of the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Description of the rape of an underaged character, pedophilia, nudity, sexual situations, minor character death, child murder, child soldiers, pregnancy, abortion, surgery, manipulation, torture, non consensual memory modification, violence, and gore.

The first time Plant #1,041 had seen him, she’d been eight years old.  He’d stood before their group of about thirty battered, bruised orphans, flanked by some of the most powerful people that the Department would allow them to see.  He’d worn a red silk suit, his dark hair long and flowing around his face, gloved hands holding the head of a walking cane.  #1,041 had blankly at him, not knowing or caring what he had to say.

“I am Maximillion Pegasus,” the man had said and #1,041 had done nothing more than blink.  “I have been informed by your Handler,” he nodded towards Bathilda Bagshot, a tiny, aging woman with thin white hair and liver spots dotted across her face, “that you are the best of the best, the cream of the crop.  Well, now is your chance to prove it.”

Pegasus smiles, his teeth blindingly white and perfectly set, “I have an assignment, one that will change the wizarding world as we know it.  But…” he pauses for dramatic effect, “it is only available to one of you.”

This grabs #1,041’s attention like nothing else.  She is thirsty for a challenge, hungry to show her worth.  Her drive to succeed, to prove herself, is the only thing that the Department has yet to strip her of, and she clings to it with desperate, clutching hands.

The assignment seems simple enough.  There will be a boy.  He will be smart, charming, and gifted by blood and history and circumstance.  His sister is the first mage born to a wizarding family and the Department wishes to make something great out of something fowl.

“We’ve already planted the first seed,” Pegasus tells them.  “The mother has been told to keep the little mage quiet, any way she can.  But given Ariana’s powers of blood manipulation, it’s only a matter of time before she acts out again.”

“We have Imperiused Kendra Dumbledore to poison her daughter with lead when the girl turns fourteen.  Ariana will lash out and in the chaos, killing herself and her mother in the process,” Bagshot continues.  “Around this time, Beauxbatons will play host to the Triwizard Tournament, the first in over a century, and Albus Dumbledore, Ariana’s eldest brother, will travel to the school as a possible champion.”

Pegasus nods, “Over the course of a year, you will infiltrate his life.  Girls, you will be expected to seduce him,” Pegasus licks his lips, his eyes flicking over them.  #1,041 notices how Bagshots eyes move towards the man, narrowing in what appeared to be suspicion, “Boy, you will become his friend, his brother.  Either way, you will make him love you like nothing else in this world.”

“After graduation, you will work together to find the divine weapons, the Deathly Hallows, collect as many followers as you can - a detailed list of possible candidates will be provided at the time,” Bagshot says.  “You will eventually break the Statute of Secrecy and openly fight against mages and their muggle allies before dying, inspiring generations of witches and wizards that will take up arms after you.  You will be a martyr.  You will be a hero.”

“You will be remembered as something greater than you could ever be,” Pegasus smiles.  #1,041 clenches her fists and _wants_ to be that.

“Except…” Pegasus continues, purposefully moving his head as he head as he observes them, counting their numbers quietly under his breath, “Mrs. Bagshot, there are too many of them.  We will need a smaller group for this to work.”

Bagshot blinks, looking a little surprised, “Of course.  How… How many would you like?”

Pegasus eyes them, humming and hawing, and #1,041 slowly moves her hand to her wand holster.  She’s in the middle of the pack.  If she wants to survive, she’ll have to be faster than anyone else here.

Beside her, a boy with curly red hair nudges her to catch her eye.  He whispers, “Team up?”

“One half,” Pegasus answers finally and #1,041 tilts her head just enough to show that she agrees.  Pegasus turns his back and walks out of the room, his long hair swishing through the air.

Bagshot watches him leave, then whips her head around to face them, looking annoyed, “Well?  What are you waiting for?  Get to it.”

#1,041 kills the red haired boy first.

* * *

 

#1,041 lands hard on her back, the concrete of the Garden’s training facility scraping at the skin of her neck.  She looks up and stairs down the length of her opponent’s wand.  She bares her teeth in rebellion.

“Dead,” the girl, Plant #997, says.  She’s blond, with pretty blond curls that frame her round face.

They are ten years old.

Claps echo around the room and both of their gazes turn towards Pegasus, who stands at the edge of the ring.  He’s grinning and staring at #997 with proud eyes, “Good!  Very good, my dear!  Now, finish her off.”

#1,041 grasps blindly for her wand, but it’s too far out of reach.  She’ll never reach it in time before #997 fires her curse.

Then, to the surprise of everyone watching, #997 lowers her wand.

“Permission to exercise mercy, sir,” #997 asks.

Pegasus tilts his head in question, “Why?”

“I wish to practice it, sir.  I’m sure that Albus would appreciate a partner who can understand the concept of mercy,” #997 explains.  She pauses, re-evaluating the situation, then slowly brings her wand up again, “If that is dissatisfactory, sir--”

“No.  No.  It is not,” Pegasus says, “Thought it is… unorthodox.”  He nods towards Bagshot, who’s frantically scribbling notes in a corner.  “You are dismissed.  Both of you.”

#997 offers her a hand up, but #1,041 slaps it away and runs for the hallways, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Hey!” #997 calls after her, “Hey! Wait a minute!”

#1,041 keeps moving, stuttering into a jog, before twisting in place to quickly apparate away.  #997 tracks her and follows her through the void.

#1,041 punches her stupid, pretty face the moment it comes into focus.  #997 rolls with it, showing why she was currently in the number one spot in the competition, and knocks #1,041 backwards with a lightning fast kick to her gut.  #1,041 stumbles backwards and collides with another body.  An arm wraps tightly around her neck and holds her in place.

“Stop moving,” the boy behind her hisses.  “We’re just trying to help.”

“Took you long enough, Gel,” #997 huffs at him, completely ignoring #1,041’s struggles.

“Sorry,” #1,041 can feel him shrug.  ‘“Got held up.”

#1,041 bites him.  He doesn’t even react.

Finally, the boy lets her go and #1,041 stumbles into the middle of the room.  She nearly tries to apparate again, but finds that she _can’t_.  Her wand is missing and-- #1,041 scowls, because #997 is twiddling it between her fingers.

“Will you just listen to us now?” #997 asks, almost sounding tired.

“What.  Do.  You.  Want,” #1,041 says through gritted teeth.

“I’m Gel,” the boy points to himself before waving his hand towards #997.  He looks nearly identical to #997, with icy blue eyes and golden hair.  She recognizes him as Plant #996, “This is my sister, Gara.”

“What’s your name?”  #997-- Gara asks.  When #1,041 hesitates, Gara offers her a small smile, “It’s alright if you don’t remember it.  I know that it would have been hard if I didn’t have Gel here to remind me all the time.”

#1,041 swallows, eying her captured wand in Gara’s milk pale hands.  Gara clearly sees this and, instead of doing any other sensable thing, tosses it towards #1,041, who nearly drops it in shock.

Gara shrugs, looking sheepish.  She tries again, “What’s your name?”

#1,041 rolls her wand between her fingers, contemplating her answer.  She spits it out eventually, “Re… Reiko.”

Gel grins effortlessly, “Hi, Reiko.”

“What do you want?” #1,041 growls again.  Plants aren’t supposed to reveal their names, let alone remember them.  Names were for the lives they’d left behind.

“Gel and I were wondering if you’d like to team up with us,” Gara offers.

#1,041 snorts, “Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“You two are the best there are here,” #1,041 crosses her arms in defiance.  “And I’m…”  She doesn’t finish, but instead thinks, _Dead last._

“Not in everything.  Not in potions,” Gel implores.

“We’re terrible at potions,” Gara continues on.  “We’ll make you a deal.  We’ll help you with your fighting and you can help us with potions.”

“So that you can be even better?” #1,041 hisses at Gara.  “Only one of us gets the assignment.  Don’t you two get that?  Only one of you makes it out alive.”

Gel shakes his head, “That’s what they want us to think.  I heard Bagshot saying that they want to give the second and third place Plants to some lady named Latner.  Bagshot said that Latner works in the Labs and it would be a waste if our potential just went to waste.”

“The three of us will get out alive,” Gara takes a few steps towards #1,041.  She takes her hand, threading their fingers together.  “We could win this.”

Something inside #1,041 shudders.  She can’t take her eyes off of Gara.  She’s really, really pretty.

And she finds herself nodding.

* * *

 

 **Final Standings  
** **May 18th, 1889**

 _First Place_ \- #997  
_Second Place_ \- #1,041   
_Third Place_ \- #996

_Runners Up:_

#984 [To Be Retired]  
#1,023 [To Be Retired]  
#1,004 [To Be Retired]

* * *

 

“Well done, my dear,” Pegasus says the moment #1,041 closes the door to his office.  “Well done, instead.  Have a seat, please.”

“Thank you, sir,” #1,041 nods, hiding the pride that she feels.  It’s too human of an emotion and she shouldn’t need to feel it right now.

“From the bottom of the pack to second place.  What an incredible accomplishment,” Pegasus smiles, spreading her file out on the desk before him.  Reiko doesn’t look at the pictures, but she wants to.  Pegasus chuckles, “No, please, admire your work.  It’s not often that someone improves as much as you have.”

“Thank you, sir,” she repeats and folds her hands in her lap.  “But I do not do this for admiration.”

“Then why do you do this?”

“For the Department of Mysteries.  For the wizarding world,” #1,041 pauses, looking down slightly, before admitting.  “For the mission.”

Pegasus tilts this head, “A mission that would see you dead by the time you turned twenty-five.”

“The mission takes priority.  If the Department requires a death, then who am I to argue?”  #1,041 answers.  She blinks, “Sir, may I ask a question?”

“You may.”

“You are asking me questions about the mission, one that I have not qualified for.  The first place position belongs to Plant #997,” #1,041 points out, remembering Gara’s brilliant smile when she’d seen the final score board.  Reiko had laughed, thrown her arms around Gel and he’d whispered, _We did it!  We did it!_ , into her shoulder.

“Oh.  You are under the impression that this was a competition, that the winner would automatically be chosen for the mission,” Pegasus laughs and the bottom drops out of Reiko’s stomach in shock.   _What?_  “No.  No.  You see, this was merely a chance for us observe you and choose the best fit from amongst the best.”

Reiko digests that information as best she can before asking, “Do you mean that I’m still in the running?”

Pegasus hums, non-committal.  He reaches across the desk and uses his fingers to tilt her head up to look at him, “Tell me, pretty girl.  Who do you think should be Albus Dumbledore’s partner?”

Logically, the answer is Gara.  She is the best Plant in the program, the strongest fighter and the smartest person #1,041 knows.  She’s driven, wicked cunning, and most of all, empathetic in a way that #1,041 doesn’t think she can be herself.  Gara and Albus would make a great pair visually, and the added benefit of Gara’s womanhood (as opposed to Gel) would be that she and Albus could create a dynasty if they were to marry before Gara’s death.

Except.... _Illogically_ …

“Me,” Reiko says finally.  “You should choose me.”

Pegasus stares at her, his thumb brushing softly across her lips.  Reiko holds his gaze, no matter how uncomfortable it makes her.

“Why?” Pegasus asks.

“Because I want to,” she answers.

Pegasus grins, pulls away, and shakes his head, a slight chuckle escaping his lips.  Reiko doesn’t know how to take that.  He leans back in his chair and observes her.

“Have you ever had sex before, Reiko?” Pegasus asks.  Reiko can barely hear anything over the roaring in her ears.

 _He called me by my name_ , she thinks, panicked.  She wasn’t supposed to remember it, but between Gel and Gara, it was all that she could call herself now.  How was she supposed to respond to this?

Reiko does the only thing she can think of, and refuses to react.

“Come now, don’t play stupid.  I know you know what your mother called you.  You remember her, don’t you?  Her name was…” Pegasus trails off, fingering at one of the pages of Reiko’s file, before finding the information he was looking for, “...Chiyo, wasn’t it?”

 _Kaa-san_ , she thinks and Reiko closes her eyes, trying to stop the images flashing through her mind.  The smell of miyo wafts around her as she remembers a woman’s soft singing voice.   _Kaa-san, I’m so sorry._

She’d been ripped from her mother’s arms, screaming and crying.  Reiko doesn’t even know if she’s alive.

“You had an older brother, Yukiie.  He was non-magic, so we didn’t take him.”

Reiko is _not_ going to cry.

“Oh.  Oh, oh, it’s alright.  Look here, girl.  Look at me,” Pegasus coaxes her to open her eyes.  “It’s going to be fine.  I won’t tell anyone.  I promise.  I swear to you.”

She’s so terrified.  Reiko almost feels sick.

“I _promise_ ,” Pegasus stresses again.  “It’s good that you remember.  You can use them as your cover story.”

“My… my what?” Reiko stammers, her throat feeling impossibly tight.

“Your cover story.  For Albus Dumbledore.  You can tell him all about your family when you meet him,” he smiles at her.  Her heart stutters in her chest.  “Now, I’m going to need you to answer my question, Reiko.”

“Your question, sir?”

He laughs at her, “Have you ever had sex before, Reiko-dear?”

She’s shaken from their previous revelations, but this is a question that can answer.

“No, sir.”

Pegasus tuts, “Have you even been kissed, my dear?”

“No, sir,” Reiko says, trying to reassemble herself.  She’s so, so _scared_.

“You haven’t gone through the training yet?  This isn’t good, Reiko, not good at all,” he frowns, ruffling through her file.  “I could have sworn it said that you had--”

“Training, sir?  I… I don’t understand…”

“ _Sexual_ training,” he tells her.  “It’s quite important for a Plant to know how to handle themselves in the bedroom, so that it’s not a shock the first time they have to bed someone during a mission.  And for this mission, it’s especially important if a girl was to be chosen.  We can’t have young Albus be dissatisfied in his partner, now can we?”

Reiko has no idea what to say, so Pegasus continues on, “Every girl who’s been part of this program has had to go through this training, once they come of age-- oh.  Is that it then?  Have you not bled yet, Reiko-dear?”

Reiko swallows.  Pegasus is looking at her so intently that she feels like she doesn’t have clothes on.  It’s a struggle to keep her hands in her lap.

“No, sir,” she answers.  She has to look away.

Pegasus sighs, looking so disappointed, “It’s such a shame.  You’d held so much promise.  But without the test, I guess we will have to chose one of the Grindelwalds.  Mrs. Bagshot seems to be behind Gara taking the roll.”

“Gara?”

“Yes.  Gara.  She completed her training, and she did receive the top score--”

“But you said the scores didn’t matter!”

“I did, but Reiko, you have to understand.  This will go above my head.  Unless…”

Years later, she will look back on this and realize that Pegasus had used that word as a baited hook, dangling it before her eyes.  But now, Reiko is twelve, and can’t see anything other than an opportunity.

“Unless _what_?”

Pegasus sighed again and very carefully picked up each page of her file, placed them in the correct order, and slid them back into the folder.  He leaned across the table, “I won’t be doing this unless I believed in you, Reiko.  I shouldn’t even be offering this at all.  I could get in so much trouble if anyone found out.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I could help you complete the training,” he says.  Reiko wants to leave just as much as she wants this mission.

“I could help you,” he says again.  “But you’d have to make me a promise as well, that you’d never tell anyone.  It would just be our little secret.  Is that alright?”

“I… I don’t know…”

“Come now, Reiko?  Don’t you trust me?  I promise that it will be fine,” Pegasus smiles, reaching for her.  “Come here, why don’t you?  We don’t have to do much.  Just come here and give me a kiss.  It’s alright.  It will all be alright.”

Reiko swallows hard, makes a choice, and stands.

* * *

 

They choose Gel.  It’s… She… She can’t…

[...]

They choose Gel to become the figurehead of the campaign, to lead Albus Dumbledore into becoming what he’s needed to be, but the Department still values their two remaining contestants.  Pegasus pulls some strings and Reiko and Gara are put to work, providing support to Gel while he’s off at Durmstrang cultivating a background.

[“Caught Gara stay with me?” Reiko asks, her eyes on the ground, when Pegasus tells her his decision to keep her on the project, to keep her close to him.  “She’s my friend.”  
Pegasus hums and promises to try, but she has to do something for him.  Reiko swallows and climbs into his lap and presses her lips against his.]

[It hurts.  Pegasus tells her that’s supposed to happen.  He talks about Gara afterwards in a way that scares her.]

The Department gives them each a task.  Reiko is to comb through old history texts, searching out the locations of the famed Deathly Hallows, three divine weapons of wizarding origin that will help Dumbledore to turn the tide of the war.  She likes that sort of thing, she discovers.  It’s something about the smell of old books and the adventure involved in the long scouting trips that she takes that make her come alive and allow her to figure out just _who_ Reiko Kitamori is.

Meanwhile, Gara, who is so much more brilliant than Reiko could ever be, is given the most important job of them all.  She combs through both Dumbledore’s and Gel’s classmates, through candidates at Beauxbatons, looking for potential followers that could be approached now or later on in life.  It’s nearly six years into their mission and she’s already gotten complex charts and diagrams, showing possible hierarchies and chains of command structures.

Reiko looks up from her own work to see Gara slump back into her chair, letting out a long sigh.  It’s not often that she gets to see Gara like this, relaxed and utterly human.  She’s tired, they both are.  It’s been nearly five weeks since the last time either Pegasus or Bagshot had allowed them to have a break from their work, but their time spent together is something that Reiko enjoys immensely.

 _Maybe,_ Reiko thinks as memories of Pegasus’s breath on her skin slither up through the fog she’s pushed them under, _I enjoy them too much._

“Gel’s being difficult,” Gara groans into her hands.  Reiko places her quill back in it’s inkwell and leans forwards.

“What do you mean?” She asks.  Gara had recently returned the Labs after a trip to Norway, where she’d been allowed to transfer key information to her brother during a routine school outing to a local town.

“He’s been… well, I don’t know what to call it, really.  It’s like…” Gara pauses, looking over at Reiko for a second.  Then, she lowers her voice and whispers, “It’s like he’s just trying to stand out.”

“It’s that the point?” Reiko asks, but all the while she knows full well what Gel’s up to.  They’ve been exchanging secret messages for almost a year now, ever since he discovered that Pegasus had been doing to her.

 _[“I’ll kill him.  I’ll fucking kill him.”  
_ _“No!  No!  He wants Gara.  He wants her… He wants_ her _,” Reiko had sobbed.  “If I don’t, he’ll… Not Gara.  Not her.”]_

_[“I’m going to tear the Department down, brick by brick, if I have to,” Gel had said, the night before he’d gone back for his second years at Durmstrang.  “I have an idea, Reiko.  Will you help me?”]_

_[“If we can find the Hallows, maybe we can turn their plan against them,” Reiko ponders aloud and Gel looks intrigued.  “With the Hallows, we could do whatever we wanted.”]_

“Not like this,” Gara shakes her head.  “He’s drawing _too much attention_ to himself, doing magic that no civilian his age could possibly have the ability to do.  And he’s missing so many classes.  No matter what the Department does, at this rate, we may have to have a back-up plan, just in case he gets himself in some serious trouble.”

Reiko’s eyes flicker across her own work, looking down at a map of Stolac, Bosnia where’s she’s circled the home of Mykew Gregorovitch, the wandmaker who she’s certain possesses the Elder Wand.

“Over half the professors at Durmstrang are Department Plants,” Reiko points out.

“Plants from the first round of the program.  Merlin only knows how reliable they actually are,” Gara rolls his eyes.  She sighs again, looking pained.  “Have you talked to him lately?”

 _Last night_ , Reiko thinks.  She wants to tell Gara, but Gel’s insistent that they don’t.  If too many people know, then there’s going to be a problem.  Instead, Reiko just shakes her head and turns back to her work.

They’re interrupted nearly half an hour later by loud voices carrying in through the door.  Gara glances back and frowns, mouthing, “What?”

The door to their workroom bursts open, revealing Pegasus, Bagshot, and a pair of people that Reiko has never seen before.  The man looks familiar in a way that Reiko can’t quite place with his slicked back hair and tight, pinched face, while the girl looks impossibly young with her short auburn hair and coal black eyes.

“Which one of you is Plant #997?” The girl asks, clearly in charge.

Gara’s gaze glazes over as she stands at attention, tall and slender and beautiful beyond her age, “I am, ma’am.”

“Who do you think you are?” shouts Pegasus, his face red with rage.  He opens his mouth to continue, but the other man steps in and silences him with a look.

The girl continues to look Gara over, poking and prodding at her with her ancient looking wand.  Finally, she grasps Gara by the chin and lowers her eyes to meet hers.  Reiko watches in terrified awe as the girl shatters Gara’s unbreakable Occlumency shields with enough force to drive her to her knees.

The girl releases Gara, shoving her to the ground in disgust, “It’s not her.”

“Then who?” The man asks as Reiko’s heart skips a beat.  She needs to get out of there.   _Gel’s done it.  He’s gotten caught._  But… she looks at Gara, who’s sobbing on the ground, clutching at her head.  She can’t leave Gara here.  Not alone.

The girl turns her cold eyes to Reiko.  She feels the girl’s magic lancing into her mind, looking for whatever she can.  But rather than resist, Reiko lets it happen, and fires back.

 _Potions wasn’t the only thing they kept me around for,_ she thinks.  She’s always been better at mental attacks than either of the twins, anyways.

Reiko only gets a name out of the girl’s mind - _Holly Hendrix_ \- before she moves, grabbing Gara and twisting with all of her might, shoving herself through the Lab’s apparition wards.  They land floors above their previous location in the British Ministry’s lobby, crashing into the Fountain of Magical Brethren and snapping the wand arm off of golden witch in their fall. All around them, confused Ministry workers looking on as Reiko hauls Gara out of the bloody water and onto her back, ignoring the pain in her side from where she’s splinched herself as she looking desperately for an exit.

There’s a series of cracks and Reiko finds herself frozen in place.  She never even saw the spell that hit her, but she assumes that it was Hendrix that did it.  The girl walks up to her, her yellow and black robes swirling around her legs.  She does the same thing that she did to Gara, pulling Reiko’s face down to meet hers, and picks Reiko’s brain apart piece by piece in front of the most powerful government in the entire wizarding world.

 _Gel, I’m sorry_ , she cries, desperately.   _Run!  Run!_

“Hendrix,” hisses the man from before, somewhere off to Reiko’s right.  “Hendrix, come on.  We have to go.”

Hendrix releases Reiko and she tumbles into the water, barely managing to roll onto her side to avoid drowning herself.  Reiko rises, shaking and out of her depth, and glares at the girl, daring her to act on the information that she _knows_ that Hendrix now has.

But instead, Hendrix’s lips peel back into a predatory smile.  She looks Reiko dead in the eyes and she says, “My mother would like this one.”  Then she turns to the man and _lies_ , “It’s not her either.  But these two will still be useful to us.”

Hendrix turns towards the stunned Minister workers and casts a memory charm on them all.  The crowd seems to pause, all at once, for just a moment before they turn back to their daily tasks, moving as if there had never been any interruption.  It’s the largest and most powerful Oblivation that Reiko has ever seen in her life.

 _Who is she?_ Reiko wonders, frightened and humbled all at once.  Hendrix gives Reiko one last glance before turning her back, calling the man to her side, and brushing past both Pegasus and Bagshot like they were nothing.

Beside her, Gara stirs.  Nothing is ever the same again.

* * *

 

The plan goes wrong.

“The Tournament isn’t a big deal, we can work around it,” Pegasus tells her one night while she lays in his bed, staring at the ceiling.  He plays with her hair and Reiko fights to keep her hands from covering her naked chest.  “It will just take a mass Obliviation of the Ministry Departments taking care of it.  And as for the Ministers, well, Spavin always been a bit of a pushover, so I’m not too worried about him.  Monteil might need a bit more work, but Dobrovodský… well, we might just have to arrange an accident, won’t we?  A hiking accident in the Scandes, perhaps?”

“Very wise, sir.  Minister Dobrovodský has family near Bodø and the holidays are upon us.  It wouldn’t be too unreasonable for him to be killed while visiting them,” Reiko agrees.  Pegasus likes to talk afterwards.  Sometimes, if she can keep the conversation going long enough, he tires himself out enough that he doesn’t crawl back on top of her.  “Should I leave tomorrow for Norway?”

Pegasus shakes his head, “No.  Only if there’s no other option.”  He frowns and sighs, “Besides, Dobrovodský is the least of our concerns.  Mr. Grindelwald has seen fit to get caught red handed using an Unforgivable on one of his professors.  I don’t know what the boy was thinking, but now we’ve got to rearrange the entire plan.  How on earth are we going to make Albus and Gellert meet?”

Reiko isn’t surprised by Gellert’s expulsion.  It’s been part of their plan for almost a year now.  The Department would be caught off guard and have to scramble to make ends meet.  And in the chaos, Gel could sneak off to Stolac to acquire the Elder Wand.  Meanwhile, Reiko would escape and target the others, the Stone in Little Hangleton and the Cloak in Godric’s Hollow.

But the Department had worked too fast for them.  The moment Gel had been expelled, Bagshot’s men had swooped in and rounded him up.  Gel is being transported to the Labs as they speak, his wand stripped from him before he’d been wrapped in chains.

Reiko hopes that once Gara wakes up that she’ll forgive them for keeping her in the dark.  She’d been laying in the Lab’s medical center since Hendrix had probed her mind, pale against the white of the sheets.  The Department is keeping her alive because she’s good at her job, just as they’d patched up the hole in Reiko side after she’d lost it forcing her way through the apparition wards.  She hopes that Gara wakes up soon, because it won’t take long for her to outlive her usefulness.

But still, that leave the question of Holly Hendrix herself.  Reiko is pretty sure that the girl knows of her treason, but she hasn’t reported her.  It makes Reiko uneasy, because now she’s in debt to this person that she knows nothing about.

Pegasus prattles on, classified plans spilling out of his mouth.  He tells her that instead of at the Tournament, he’ll give Gel and Dumbledore a more private meeting in Godric’s Hollow.  Ariana’s survival in the face of her mother’s death will force Dumbledore home so that he could care for her while their brother was still at school.  Bagshot will return to her hometown as a Department shell to act as Gel’s great-aunt, her brains carved out and reprogrammed, so that she could never give anything away once Gellert Grindelwald and his sacrifice became a household name.

“Oh, she doesn’t know this, of course,” Pegasus tells Reiko.  He smiles mockingly, “I hated that annoying bitch from the start, and I believe you did, too.  Don’t lie to me now, Reiko-dear.  You’ll be glad to see her go as much as I am.”

Reiko remembers the time that Bagshot watched, unblinking, as Reiko broke each bone in her own fingers and then fought off three acromantula without a wand.  But after she’d won, Bagshot had carefully drawn the poison out of her body and stitched up Reiko’s wounds herself, telling her the whole time how well she’d done.

Reiko doesn’t think that she’ll feel anything in regards to Bagshot’s fate.

Eventually, Pegasus gets bored of talking about work, so he moves on to talking about himself.

“I don’t know if you knew, but we had a visitor from one of the higher ups yesterday,” and it is in this moment that Reiko realizes that _Pegasus doesn’t remember her escape,_ that Hendrix probably wiped it from his mind as well as all of the Ministry employees.  “Blaine Garrish told me that there’s going to be an opening amongst the Inner Circle soon.  I’ve been recommended to take the Test.”

Reiko blinks in confusion.  Pegasus answers her unasked question, “The Inner Circle is a group of six witches and wizards who work directly with the Department Head.  Supposedly, whenever there’s an opening, they test possible replacements with something called the Flamel Test in the Gardens.  So after this little project is all wrapped up nicely, I’m doing to take the test and move up.”

He pauses, moving his hand softly along Reiko’s jaw and tilting her head so that he could look her in the eyes.  She wants nothing more than to run.

“I’m going to take you with me, Reiko,” Pegasus says softly, like he’s admitting something secret.  “What we have… I’ve never felt like this before.  There have been others, girls that I have desired and had before, but never one that I’ve loved quite like you.  Tell me that you feel the same.”

Reiko can’t get the words out.  So, thinking of Gara and everything that she’s done to keep Pegasus away from her, she forces herself to kiss him.

“You’re crying,” Pegasus whispers when she pulls away.  He presses his lips to her cheek, kissing her tears from her face.  “Don’t worry, my love.  I’ll keep you forever, by my side until the end of time.  We’ll be eternally young, you and I.  Ageless and perfect in the French Gardens.  Isn’t that wonderful?”

He continues on like that, in stuttering gasps and hushed confessions, buried deep as he moves inside of her.  Reiko closes her eyes and thinks of Gara.

 _I love you,_ she thinks and waits for it to be over.

* * *

 

They keep Gara hostage to ensure Gel’s loyalty, binding her to the Labs, far away from the action, with a curse designed to kill her if she leaves.

Reiko pleads with Gel to stay on course the night that Bagshot had been dragged kicking and screaming into the Reprogramming Room.  Pegasus had followed in after her, intent on watching the entire operation.  She and Gel had been ordered to watch the door.

“Please.   _Please_ , just give them what they want,” Reiko begs, clutching desperately to her friend’s arms.  “We were stupid, we can’t… we can’t do anything.  The Department is too powerful, we can’t--”

“They’ll kill her regardless.  Once I’m dead, she’ll be a liability,” Gel says sadly, his eyes red rimmed from crying.  “Reiko, we have to now.  Don’t you see?  It’s the only way--”

“No!  No!”

“I can change this!  Don’t make me stand by as Pegasus rapes you and kills my sister.  Don’t ask me to do that,” Gel tells her.

“Do you seriously think that a divine weapon will be enough to change anything?” Asks a voice behind them.  Reiko and Gel turn to see Holly Hendrix leaning against the wall.  She hadn’t even heard the girl arrive.

Hendrix laughs at their stunned faces, “Oh, if only Garrish could see you two now, he’d know just how poorly his stupid little program actually is at creating the perfect Department soldier.  He’s going to need to step up his game with the next batch.”

 _Garrish?_  The man that Pegasus had talked about that night a few months ago?  What did he have to do with anything?

“He invented the Plant program,” Hendrix answers her mental question, slipping past her Occlumency shields like they weren’t even there.  She tilts her head, smiling slyly, “Planning on running away, are we?”

Gel plants himself in front of Reiko, “Don’t touch her.”

“I’m not going to fight a pregnant girl.  I’m not a monster,” Hendrix rolls her eyes, but then raises an eyebrow when Reiko goes utterly pale.  “You didn’t know…”

“ _Pregnant?_ ” Reiko wheezes, her hands flying to her stomach.  She can’t control the way that she curls in half and vomits on the floor.

“It’s Pegasus’s, isn’t it?” Hendrix asks, her voice low and dark.  Reiko can’t answer.  In front of her, Gel clenches his fist so hard that she can hear his bones creaking in protest.  “You should really meet my mother.  She can help you.”

Reiko looks up, desperate for anything.  She wants this thing out of her.  She’ll do whatever it takes.

“Reiko, don’t.  It’s another one of their traps,’ Gel warns her.

“Listen, I can only get you away you while Pegasus is in there,” Hendrix stresses, her hands on her hips and ignoring Gel entirely.  “I’ll let you say goodbye to Gara.  I’ll get them to lift the step and send her back to the Gardens.  I know you love her, I felt it when I was in your mind.  You know why Pegasus had her bound to the Labs.  He’ll de-age her and do the same thing that he did to her.”

“ _No_ …” Reiko can’t think, can barely breathe, but her instinct to protect Gara is stronger than anything that she knows.  “He can’t.  He won’t touch her.”

“Come with me, then,” Hendrix says again and Reiko makes a choice.

* * *

 

Gara looks as beautiful and serene as ever when Reiko walks into the room.  They’d given her a white silk dress that glinted in the moonlight streaming through the window, her golden hair curling around her face, wild and untamable.  If Reiko hasn’t been in love before, she’d have fallen then.

“They said they’re taking me to the Gardens ,” Gara says.  “Reiko, what have you promised them?  What have you done?”

Reiko reaches up and cups her face in her hands, “It doesn’t matter.  You’ll be safe.”

“They haven’t said anything about Gel.  They’re not saying anything at all,” Gara pleads.

“It will be alright,” Reiko promises and kisses her softly, trying to memorize the feel and the taste of her, because this would be the last time.  “I love you.  Remember that.  I love you.”

“Reiko, _what have you done?_ ” Gara asks again, tears streaming down her face.  Reiko wipes them away with her thumbs.

“I love you,” she says again.  There is a knock at the door.  Behind it, Hendrix tells her to hurry up.  “Forever.  Always.  It will always be you.”

“Tell me what’s happening,” Gara asks one final time through her fear, and Reiko tells her _everything_.

By the time she’s done speaking, there’s arguing outside the door.  Pegasus bursts in, as livid as Reiko had ever seen her.  Gara reacts a second before Reiko does, pulling out her wand and launching a volley of fire at the man.  Pegasus tries to shield himself, but Gara’s curse shatters his defenses and the fire catches his arm, burning his flesh nearly to the bone.  He screams furiously, nearly incomprehensible in his rage and fires a curse that catches Reiko in the chest.  She falls, convulsing on the floor.

Unspeakables rush into the room.  She lays there, her life ebbing away, as one group pulls Pegasus away, the other incapacitates Gara and drags her from the room.  Reiko gets one final look at Gara before the darkness begins to encroach on her vision.

“She was taking too long,” Holly Hendrix says to the pair of figures behind her.  Reiko recognizes Garrish, but the woman beside him is a stranger.

She’s middle aged, with red hair, blue eyes, and a face that looks strikingly like Holly’s.   _This must be her mother,_ Reiko realizes as she feels her body start to fail.

“Don’t worry, my girl.  I’ve got you,” the woman says, pulling something small and red from her pocket.  “It’s all going to be alright...”

* * *

 

Two months later, #1,041 sits on the roof of the Dumbledore household in Godric’s Hollow, cloaking in invisibility, and waits.

#996 had been discovered in bed with Albus Dumbledore only yesterday, about to whisper classified information in a desperate, final attempt at freedom.  #996 had been reprogrammed earlier this morning, just as his Handler Bagshot had, and the entire project had been scrapped.  The Department is looking at better, more controlled options now.

The suggestion has been made to impregnate a Plant with Albus Dumbledore’s child and to raise the boy under the Plant program.  It seems to be the most viable option.  Pegasus has been assigned this project, to work directly under Blaine Garrish and his protege, Trista Latner, in preparation for the Flamel Test.  She’d seen the two of them standing side-by-side, Pegasus clasping his hands over his cane and Latner had stood beside him with her dark eyes and dark hair.

#1,041 grips at her robes to avoid pressing her hand to the ever growing problem inside her.

There is going to be a fight today between #996, Albus Dumbledore, and, if necessary, his brother, Aberforth.  In the middle of it all, it is to be #1,041’s job to kill Ariana Dumbledore and make it look like an accident.

#1,041 watches as as #996 walks up the front walk, eying his forehead in search of any scars from the operation, so that there’s nothing that gives them away.  But the Department’s healers are too good to have left a trace.  She’s disappointed, though she shouldn’t be.

The voices inside the house get heated, creating the argument that #996 had been told to create.  The first curse fired is Aberforth’s, #1,041 is sure of it.  The fight escalates quickly, spilling out onto the front yard.  #1,041 slips inside the house and pulls out her wand.

Ariana Dumbledore kneeling on the sofa, pressing her face into the window to watch the fight outside.  She tenses and spins to face #1,041.

The girl is small and hauntingly thin, hollow cheekbones high on her sickly pale face.  Her blonde hair lays limp against her shoulders.  But her eyes are the same blue as both of her brothers, bright and twinkling with an odd kindness.

“He said that you’d come,” Ariana says, peeling away from the couch and standing in the middle of the room.  Her legs are as thin as the rest of her, ankles barely supporting her own weight.  #1,041 remembers that Ariana was supposed to be able to control blood and wonders if the only reason this girl survived her mother’s assassination attempt is because she’s pushing her own heart to continue to beat.  

“Who?”  #1,041 asks.

“Gel.  He said that if something ever happened to him, if he ever became different, that they’d send you,” she clarifies angrily.  “ _What did you do to him?_ ”

#1,041 doesn’t answer.

“Why?  Just… why?” Ariana says through gritted teeth.  “Is it because of me?  What I am?”

#1,041 hesitates, then says, “Partially.  It’s also because of who Albus is.  What he could have been.”

“Are you here to kill me?” Ariana asks.

#1,041 nods.

“Why?”

[“The girl is a liability,” Helena Hendrix, Holly Hendrix’s mother, says, her blue eyes cold as ice.  “Pegasus is scraping the entire plan and moving on, but Ariana is a loose end.  She dies tomorrow.”

#1,041 nods.]

#1,041 pulls out her wand.

[“Do this for me and I’ll see what I can do about that operation.”]

Ariana, all of fourteen, nods soberly, “Gel said that you’d do that.”

The mage flings her arm out just as #1,041 firsts her Killing Curse.  Something lurches inside of her and #1,041 falls to the floor with Ariana, her heart seizing and sputtering in her chest.  #1,041 gasps and drops her wand, clutching at her chest, as Ariana dies beside her.  She lays there next to the girl’s corpse until she can breathe again.

The fact that Ariana was so sick and having to keep herself alive with her own abilities is probably what saves #1,041’s life.  Having to switch in between killing her murderer and saving herself gave #1,041 just enough time to get a shot in.

She’s lucky to be alive.

#1,041 flees the Dumbledore household before the fighting outside finishes.  She turns just in time to see #996 use the Cruciatus Curse on Aberforth, to watch Albus blast his lover across the front yard and into the neighbour’s living room, tears streaming down his face.  #1,041’s entire life had been building towards this moment, and here it is, falling to pieces around her.

Gel is as good as dead.  Gara is gone, somewhere that #1,041 can never reach.

And Reiko?  Reiko Kitamori feels much of a corpse as Ariana.

* * *

 

Consciousness evades #1,041, feeling like she’s trying to grasp at an eel, covered in slick.  Her eyes peal open.  Her mouth feels like someone has stuffed it full of cotton.

“Water?” She croaks.  Someone moves and then a glass is pushed against her lips, cold water running down her throat.

“Do you think you can sit up?” It’s Helena, looking as matronly as she had the day #1,041 had met her.  #1,041 nods and pushes herself upright.  Her stomach screams in pain, but she ignores it.

“How are you feeling?” Helena asks, concerned.

#1,041 grimaces, “Not well, but I’ve been worse.”

Helena smiles, “Well, you’ll be pleased to know that the operation was a complete success.”

#1,041 eyes fill with tears, arms wrapping around her stomach.   _I’m not pregnant.  I’ll never be pregnant again_.  She’s so fucking grateful.

“I’m so sorry, my girl, for everything you were put through.  We should have known,” Helena looks down and pulls #1,041 hands from her body, holding them with her own.  “Pegasus was arrested by muggle authorities for assaulting a girl two years before he joined the Department.  There will be an investigation, I promise.”

#1,041 nods, her jaw clamping shut.  She feels ill.  She feels _angry._

Then, there’s a cool, tingling feeling in her gut, and the pain slowly ebbing away.  When she looks up, #1,041 sees Helena pocketing something small and red.

Helena smiles softly, “You’re safe now, girl.  I promise you.  You are _safe_.”

If only she really felt that way.

“What’s your name?” Helena asks.  When #1,041 tenses, the older woman shakes her head.  “Don’t worry.  I simply don’t want to address you with your Plant code.  If you’re going to work with me, you’re going to be a person, not a number.”

#1,041 closes her eyes and thinks of the life she’s lives as Reiko Kitamori, of all the things that she’s done and had done to her, all the people that she’s left and had to leave.  She doesn’t want to be Reiko Kitamori anymore.

But if #1,041 is unexceptable to her new master, then a new name will have to suffice.

She remembers her mother and brother just then, of the few memories that she has of them.  #1,041 remembers the smell of miso soup simmering over the fire and the laughter that they’d shared.  And then, very briefly, she remembers her father.  She remembers his name.

“Kiyoshi,” she answers.  “My name is Kiyoshi.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I'm about to get very political about some of the things that may come up in discussion about this chapter. I'm warning you in case you want to skip the following author's note.
> 
> I understand that this is probably going to be a very controversial chapter for me to publish, especially because it deals with Reiko's rapes, abortion, and subsequent hysterectomy, on top of Pegasus's pedophilia (which seriously made me want to throw up while I was writing those scenes).
> 
> I'm just going to say that I'm pro-choice, as I believe that anyone who has the ability to get pregnant should have a say in whether or not they want to be pregnant. If you are not pro-choice, perhaps the fact that Reiko was an underage girl unwillingly pregnant with her rapist's child will help you understand why she did what she did. And if that still doesn't work, well, I'm not going to argue with you about it and any comments left about the topic will be left unanswered. Any threatening or offensive language will be reported, as per the guidelines on this site.
> 
> If this is something that makes you want to discontinue reading the Three Kings series, I thank you for your patronage up until this point and I wish you luck with your future reading experiences.
> 
> I also wanted to show that rape is not something that should be seen through a black and white lens. Rape is not always a blitz attack, nor is it something that happens to someone after they've been drugged or intoxicated. It is not always done by strangers wearing masks in dark alleys. It is often someone you know. And Reiko may have 'made a choice' or 'forced herself to do something', but she was in no way consenting. What happened was rape. Reiko was underage and unable to say NO. It's gross. It's horrible. And worst of all, this is a reality that people have to deal with in our own world. What Pegasus (and any other real world person like him) did to Reiko (and their victims) is wrong.
> 
> And not only that, but the Hendrix's (both Helena and Holly) take advantage of the situation, holding Reiko's abortion and hysterectomy hostage until she swears her allegiance to them. They are not her savours; they are just as bad.
> 
> I would also like to clarify a few more things before I go on.
> 
> The Three Kings Series was first written before the release of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and also preceeds any information about the movie that was released on Pottermore. Therefore, the Gellert Grindelwald that is shown in this iteration is not the one that will be seen in the movie series, nor will his character be involved in any of the events that occur in the movies. Also, things like MACUSA, Ilvermorny, and any of Newt Scamander's adventures did not exist within the Three Kings Series. I made this decision early on in the writing of Hunt because it would mean rewriting and reworking many plotlines that I had planned at the time and, at that point, was not done in protest towards the Fantastic Beasts series in any way.
> 
> [DL;DR: The Fantastic Beasts movies and any Pottermore information regarding the American wizarding world are considered non-canon as far as the Three Kings Series are concerned.]
> 
> On the other hand, I would like to say that while the Grindelwalds are going to be involved in upcoming plots, I do not support casting of Johnny Depp as Gellert Grindelwald because of his history of assault, specifically towards his now ex-wife, Amber Heard. I also do not support JK Rowling's continual refusal of showing Albus Dumbledore's sexuality in any canon media and her continued support of Depp's casting in the Fantastic Beasts movies, as well as the silencing of people criticizing these decisions.
> 
> I believe that it is important to openly acknowledge problematic actions, especially within a series that I hold near and dear to my heart. It's half the reason why I started to write the Three Kings in the first place and is why I continue to write it despite the issues that I have with the Harry Potter universe.


	16. Completion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, you didn’t. I made me,” Reiko tells him. She snorts and shakes her head, “You know, I was terrified of you for so long. I threw up in Keith’s house after I saw you for the first time at the American Ministry, just from fear. I thought you were a monster that I’d never get away from. But now, after all of this…” she pauses and delivers the final crushing blow. “You’re the biggest disappointment I’ve ever experienced.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of blatant misogyny, sexism, racism, gore, body modification, pregnancy, rape, pedophilia, minor character death, C-sections, child abandonment, and child abuse.

Max doesn’t know how he’s still alive.  The last thing he remembers is the red bitch’s claws digging into his side and blood coming pouring out of him before a blaze of power had overtaken his entire being.  Then, everything was dark and cold, full of death, full of emptiness.

He wakes to a room with white walls and a white ceiling.  The white sheets cover the white bed he lays on, surrounded by white muggle equipment that lets out a steady series of beeps.  The wires that spill out of them are white too, attaching themselves to the bloody, weeping remains of his body.  He can’t feel anything.

The only other colour in the room is the red bitch.  The Lady Pharaoh stands at the foot of the bed.  She is short and ugly, her inky skin blending almost seamlessly into the black muggle military gear she’s wearing.  Her lips are too big for her face and her ridiculous red hair is pulled into unsightly ropes that Max can only assume haven’t been washed in over thousands of years.

Max thinks of all the paintings that he’d seen of the Lady Pharaoh, looking young and beautiful with her creamy white legs spilling out of her silk spun robes, rising slowly from the Nile, her mysterious dark eyes wild and playful.  The figure that stands before him is nothing but a disappointment.

The Pharaoh stares unblinkingly at him, her arms crossed over her flat chest.  She tilts her head to the side when she realizes that he’s awake, observing him like she thinks that she’s better than him.  Max tries to snarl at her, but all that comes out is a breathy whisper.

He moves his tongue inside his mouth and discovers that most of his teeth are gone.  There are pins in his jaw that weren’t there before.

Max looks down at his body again and sees all the archaic, muggle metal that they’ve welded to his bones.  He hisses at the Pharaoh, “ _ What have you done to me? _ ”

She doesn’t respond.  The red bitch just stands there like an idiot.  He wonders what the King Commander ever saw in her, for him to settle for someone so hideously stupid.  Max doubts that what’s between her legs could have been enough.

“Get me out of here, you dumb bitch!” He screams, blood running down his ruined jaw as he forces it open passed all the pins and needles that they’ve shoved into him - they’ve made it so that he can’t feel anything, so he takes advantage of it.

The Pharaoh finally responds, not with words, but by uncrossing her arms and raising a single hand.  She snaps her fingers and suddenly, all that Max knows is terrible, agonizing pain.  His vision whites out and a mangled scream erupts from his throat.  He can’t breathe.  He can’t even  _ think _ .

Then, as sudden as it came, its gone.  Max sucks air into his lungs like he’s dying as tears run down the left side of his face.  He closes the only human eye he has left and feels for the divine weapon that he embedded in his own skull.

It’s not there.  Max tries to reach for the right side of his face, but all that he can do is shudder viciously on the bed.   _ They haven’t even felt a need to tie me down.  Without the Eye, they think I’m helpless.  But… _ He sees the carelessness in the mages’ plan.   _ They’ve left my wand within reach. _

“Do you understand now?” The Pharaoh finally speaks, and the words that come out of her oversized mouth are barely English, her thick, alien accent mangling the language to the point where Max can scarcely discern what she’s saying.

_ I understand that you’re a moronic whore _ , he thinks and flails his arm towards his wand.  He manages to grab hold of it before the bitch can do anything, forcing his fingers around the wood.  Max points it at her and snarls.

“ _ Avada Kedavra! _ ” He screams.

Nothing happens.

He tries again, saying the spell louder, making the motion more pronounced.  Nothing happens.  Max keeps trying, getting more and more desperate with each attempt.  He starts to cry, his chest heaving in between each spell, as reality sets in.

The Lady Pharaoh walks calmly over to the side of the bed where he holds his wand in a death grip, praying for it to work.  She doesn’t even look him in the eye when she reaches down to take it from him.

Max flinches away, hysterically screaming, “No!  No, don’t!  It’s  _ mine _ !  It’s--”

She ignores him and pries his wand from his grasp, taking a moment to twirl it between her fingers, and then snaps it in half.

“Do you understand now?” The Pharaoh asks again, gazing down at him with her inhuman purple eyes, looking like all the god that the legends said her to be.  “Do you understand what I have done?”

“I don’t--   _ How-- _  My magic, how did you--”

“I took it from you,” she says like she’s talking about the weather and not something so horrible, so impossible that Max can barely comprehend his own truth.  “Just as I can control the pain receptors in your nervous system on a whim.  Just as I forced you to continue to live long after your body had expired.”

The Pharaoh places the broken halves of the wand on the bedside table and picks up a mirror.

“Look at yourself,” she commands.  “You exist inside a corpse.”

Max doesn’t recognize the person in the mirror.  His skin is grey and sagging, lined with age and pale blue veins.  His hair is wispy white and falling from his head in clumps.  The right side of his face is mauled beyond repair; the hole where he’d carved out his own eye to replace it with a divine weapon is empty, raw, and scabbed over.

“The funny thing about anti-ageing potions,” the Pharaoh tells him, “is that they’re actually mildly addictive.  Your body adapts very well to living while you take them, but can’t function correctly when you cease to do so.  And as a result… well…” She hums, mockingly sympathetic.

“We looked you up after Reiko Kitamori mentioned you for the first time,” she continues.  “Do you want to know what we found?”

_ Nothing.  You couldn’t find anything, _ Max thinks desperately.  But he’s proven wrong the moment that he says it aloud.

“We found an arrest record from 1872.  One Maximillion Pegasus was arrested in Napa, California for the rape of Isabel Johnson.  She was ten.  You were thirty-eight,” she smiles politely at his confusion.  “We didn’t find anything else, though.  I’m sure your Department covered up the rest quite nicely.  But what we did find from that one tiny slip up was your age.  You were born in 1834, making you one hundred and seventy-nine years old.  And right now, because you’re off the anti-ageing potions that you’ve no doubt been taking for over a century, you are feeling each and every one of those years right now.”

_ What else is there left?  _ Max screams inside.   _ Why are you keeping me alive? _

Then the door opens, and he gets his answer.

Reiko Kitamori hobbles into the room, looking as tired as he feels.  She’s propped herself up on crutches and wearing a white hospital gown with tiny, pale green dots.  She’s older than he’s ever seen her, which had been the reason that he hadn’t recognized her in the times that they’d met.   _ Age _ , he thinks,  _ doesn’t suit her _ .

Reiko's eyes flick from him to the Pharaoh, “What… What happened to him?”

For a moment, Max thinks that, maybe, there’s still an ounce of lingering affection for him in her voice.  But his hopes are drowned when Reiko’s response to the Pharaoh’s explanation for his state is answered with a short and cutting, “Good.”

“Reiko-dear…” he tries to hiss out, reaching for her.

Her eyes narrow and she asks the Pharaoh, “Make him hurt for me.”

The red bitch snaps her fingers and then, again, his world is swamped with pain.  Max screams and screams, his body convulsing as his brain is unable to process it all.  It should be enough to kill him, but Max knows that the Pharaoh will not let him die this way.

After what feels like an eternity, he comes back to himself.  Max’s single eye opens and Reiko has not moved, has not even blinked at his torture.

“Why?” He asks, so utterly confused by all of this.  “Reiko, why?  Why do this?”

That finally gets her to react.

“ _ ‘Why? _ ’” She repeats, spitting the words out in anger.  “After everything that you did, you have the gall to ask why?”

“All I did was love you,” he whispers.

Reiko sputters, then turns to the Pharaoh, “Hurt him again.”  When it’s over, Reiko scowls at him, “I was eleven years old.  I had been taken from my mother and trained to be a child soldier.  You took advantage of that and raped me for six years!  You were going to do the same thing to Gara.  And then you ask  _ why _ ?  How stupid are you?”

“Gara?  I never… I never wanted her… It was you, Reiko.  I only ever wanted you.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Reiko hisses, jabbing him fiercely with the butt of her crutch.  “They told me what you were planning to do to her if Gel didn’t keep in line.”

“I never wanted her,” Max repeats.  “Whoever told you that… they lied, Reiko.  They lied.”

Reiko shakes her head, closing her eyes like she can’t bear to look at him.  Max can only focus on her.

“If that was the case, then why did you go looking for her baby?”  Reiko finally asks.  Before he can get an answer out, she snarls, “You’d only do that if Gara meant something to you, you narcissistic piece of shit.  So do. Not. Lie. To me.  Or--”

Max interrupts her before she can get the Pharaoh to make him hurt again, “Yes!  Alright, alright!  I wanted her, too.  Is that what you wanted to hear, Reiko?  I wanted her, too.”

“Did you touch her?” Reiko asks through gritted teeth.  When he doesn’t answer, Reiko comes forward and reaches for his collar, dragging him upright with her incredible strength.  Max remembers all the rumours that he’d heard over the years about Kiyoshi, the Department Head’s invincible assassin, and realizes far too late that he’s dealing with her right now.  “Did you touch her too?”

Max closes his eye, not wanting to see her reaction when he whispers, “No.”

Reiko drops him back onto the bed and he hears her crutches clatter to the floor.  He opens his eye to see her standing there, barely supporting her own weight, and staring at him in relief.

“Oh thank god,” she says finally.

He nods, “I didn’t.  I wanted to, but I never-- ”

Reiko’s fist connects with his jaw so hard that he can feel the impact beneath all the numbing abilities that that Pharaoh has.

“Don’t.  Shut the fuck up.  Do not try to explain why you wanted to rape her, too,” she hisses, absolutely livid.  Reiko’s breath comes out between clenched teeth as her chest violently heaves.  “Who’s the father?”

“Albus Dumbledore,” Pegasus tells her.  “I was told that the Department wanted to recreate the project, using Dumbledore’s blood.  We could train the boy like we trained the Plants so that he’d never stray like Dumbledore did.  But they scrapped it because none of the Plants could carry a boy to term.

“We switched to Gara too late.  Garrish had already found Tom Riddle in a muggle orphanage by the time she gave birth,”  He laughs, feeling hysterically light, “It was Keith.  It was Keith this entire time.  Latner took him from me and kept him in the Bell Jar in the Labs for almost a century to complete some stupid little experiment.  And when she was done, Latner gave Keith to the Plant program.  I watched over him this entire time, made sure that he was happy.  Made sure that he was safe.”

“You…” Reiko looks at him, stunned.  “You used her... for the project.  After Gel failed…”

“Gara named him after his father, you know?  That’s his real name.  Not Keith, but Albus.  Albus Grindelwald,” he continues on, babbling secrets for the sake of his own life.  “Please, Reiko.  You have to believe me.  I only did it to make sure that Keith was alright.   _ Please _ .”

Reiko doesn’t say anything for a long, long time.  Then, she finds the only available chair in the room and sits down, holding her face in her hands.  Her shoulders start to shake.

“Latner told me herself, years after the fact when we were doing the Flamel Test together.  You can ask her.  I promise, she’ll tell you the same thing,” Max says, hoping that it will get her to stop crying.  He hates it when she cries.  “Hell, you can ask Gara herself.  She’s probably still locked up in the Labs with Bode.  You can find her--” He stops talking.

Because Reiko Kitamori isn’t crying.  She’s laughing.

“Holy fuck,” she howls, arching her back and looking at the ceiling.  “Oh Merlin, are you actually serious right now?”

“I don’t understand,” Max frowns.

“She was right.  Shit, Latner was right this entire time.  You really are the biggest idiot in this whole thrice damned Department,” Reiko cackles madly.  “You actually believed it!”

“I don’t understand,” he repeats again.

It takes a long time for Reiko to calm herself enough to speak coherently.  And when she does, Max hangs onto every word.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why Latner passed the Flamel Test and you didn’t?” Reiko sneers.  When he frowns, she continues, “Because the Flamel Test is something that takes decades to complete, but you thought that you could do it in under a year.  Latner tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen, would you?  Because the very idea that a woman could possibly be smarter than you is something you can’t even comprehend.  That’s why you had Bagshot taken out for recommending Gara over her brother.  That’s why you had Keith lead his team instead of Tilla Mook, who deserved it far more than he ever did.

“And they may have stayed quiet about it, but  _ Latner _ ?  She’s not the type to do that.  Latner is a sociopath and you delayed her research by thirty fucking years.  She wanted you humiliated,” Reiko chuckles.  “And if your head weren’t so far up your ass, you’d have figured it all out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re into little girls, you sick fuck,” Reiko grips the railing on the side of Max’s bed.  “Do you honestly think that I’d be so terrified of you finding her kid if she was a boy?”

Max’s heart stops, “ _ What? _ ”

“Latner told me that Gara had a girl.  That’s why they scrapped the project - not because they found Riddle, but because they wanted a boy.  She laughed when she told me that she’d convinced you that Keith was Gara’s.  I told her that there was no way that you’d be fooled, but she told me-- and I should have believed--” 

“But… I held him.  I held Keith in my arms, two days after the project ended,” Max is so confused, “Latner told me after they found Riddle that she would take him instead, for her experiment.  Because she’d lost her twins--”  He stops suddenly, barely breathing, and realizes what he’s been missing all these years, “That  _ bitch _ .”

Keith wasn’t Gara and Albus Dumbledore’s child.  Keith was Latner’s.

“If you’d just looked at his file, you’d have figured it out,” Reiko shakes her head.  “His real name isn’t Albus, it’s Keith Howard II - not The Second, but the number two.  Latner carried a pair of wizard twins so that she could use them in the Bell Jar after she couldn’t get access to Gara and me - because you put her experiment on hold and delayed her entrance into the Flamel Test.”

The image of Latner wells up, looking impossibly young the day after he’d found out the Reiko was still alive.  She smiles at him, loathing,  _ Maxie, honey, we work for the Department of Mysteries.  And you’re honestly surprised that someone lied to you? _

Then she’d laughed at him because the bitch had known.

“She put Keith and his brother in the Jar and studied them for decades, ageing them back and forth, so that she could pass the Flamel Test.  A test that, once you got bored cultivating Tom Riddle into the monster you needed him to be, Garrish let you take because you were favourite little pet, even though his own protege had been working on it for thirty years,” Reiko explains, looking at him like she thought he was stupid.  “And you thought that you’d found Nicolas Flamel living in Devonshire.”

_ I did find him.  I saw him in Devonshire myself, _ he thinks desperately, remembering Flamel sitting in his quaint little home, his dark hair slicked back over his withered face.  His wife, Perenelle, had been sitting in the chair next to the kitchen, with her red hair and blue eyes, dressed in yellow and black.  She’d smiled at him and laughed at his jokes, reminding him of the mother he’d left behind in California to join the Department.

“You were so close.  Right on top of it all, but you couldn’t see it,” Reiko snorts.  She leans down and gathers up her crutches.  “Where is Gara’s daughter?”

“I don’t know!  But… but I’ll help you find her!” Max shouts, trying to keep her in the room.   _ Don’t leave me alone with her, _ he pleas, glancing at the Lady Pharaoh, who’s standing silently off to the side.  “Please, Reiko!  I’ll--”

Reiko looks down at him coldly, making eye contact, and then--

_ “Another squib,” Garrish says, the distaste clear in his mouth.  The Plant girl lays dead in the bloody bed, her stomach carved open in Latner’s attempt to get the baby out of her.  The infant is screaming wildly in Latner’s arms. _

_ Pegasus clicks his tongue, “I don’t understand.  Why does this keep happening?” _

_ He misses the look of satisfaction that passes over Latner’s face-- _

_ “It’s been three decades,” he hears Latner shout through Garrish’s office door.   _ _ “You told me that this project was only going to be a few years, Blaine!” _

_ “And I told you, as soon as you can ensure these girls deliver a male heir, you can take the Test.  We’re running out of samples, Latner.  If this doesn’t work--” Garrish responds, but Latner does something to silence him.  “Tris… Tris, we can’t…” _

_ “Use the Grindelwald girl.  Dumbledore wanted the brother, so maybe the sister will do,” Latner’s voice is low and husky.  “Come on, Blaine.  Forget your wife, she doesn’t have to know.”-- _

_ He hears Plant #997’s screams behind the closed door of the Gardens.  He wishes the girl would be quiet, that she would give birth in silence so that they could move on with their plan without any more fuss. _

_ Blaine Garrish stands beside him, his hair slick against his scalp, looking no older than twenty, “We used the last of the samples.  She’d best have a boy.” _

_ Max licks his lips, remembering Reiko, and how, in his rage, he’d accidentally killed her.   _ Perhaps… _ he glances at the door,  _ There is still a chance for me to find the one.

_ “Women are too fragile for this line of work.  I’ve told the Head this a hundred times,” Garrish continues on.  “If she whelps a squib, we’ll have to find a substitute.” _

_ Max nods, agreeing wholeheartedly-- _

_ Two days later, Latner puts the babe in his arms, smiling crookedly, “Garrish found a better option than him: the trueborn heir of Salazar Slytherin.  That’ll get us the support of the pureblood elite more than the child of Gryffindor’s bastards.” _

_ Max snorts, supporting the baby's head, “Gryffindor’s descendants are a dime a dozen.” Max looks up at Latner, “I heard about your boys.” _

_ Latner shrugs, sounding unaffected, “Blaine has a jealous wife and I was never suited for motherhood.  It was probably for the best-- _

Then he sees a memory that isn’t his and Pegasus realizes that Reiko is showing him something.  To dig in the knife.

_ Kiyoshi slams her way into an office and Pegasus recognizes the woman inside.  With her red hair and her blue eyes, Perenelle Flamel sits behind the desk, an elegant quill in her hands. _

_ “Where is Gara’s daughter?” Kiyoshi hisses, slamming her palms against the wood desk. _

_ “Hello, Kiyoshi.  How are you doing this morning?” Flamel asks without looking up, dabbing her quill to knock out the excess ink. _

_ Kiyoshi slaps a file down in front of her.  When Flamel opens it up, Pegasus recognizes the face of Cecilia Crawford, the third mage to ever go through the conversion program.  He’d loved her once.  Her death had hit him so hard. _

_ Pegasus watches as Flamel swallows, “I wasn’t consulted on this.” _

_ “You promised.  You swore to me that you’d never let him near children again,” Kiyoshi says, trembling with rage. _

_ “She was a mage.” _

_ “She was a fifteen-year-old girl and she killed herself because of what she was doing to her,” Kiyoshi growls.  “Latner told me that Gara had a daughter.  Where is she?” _

_ Flamel looks up, her eyes a piercing blue, “I don’t know.” _

_ “Bullshit.” _

_ “I don’t know, Kiyoshi,” Flamel responds.  “Besides, Pegasus is an idiot.  He doesn’t know anything.” _

_ “Why do people keep saying that?  Pegasus is a monster.  If he gets a hold of Gara’s girl, then he’ll-- he’ll…” Kiyoshi grits her teeth.  “Just because he wasn’t smart enough figure out who you are, doesn’t mean that he isn’t capable of figuring things out.” _

_ Flamel looks surprised, but then she smiles with brilliant white teeth, “So?  When did you figure it out?” _

_ “I may have had a century of working next to you to help me out, but come on,” Kiyoshi scoffs and Pegasus watches as her eyes travel from Flamel’s black and gold robes to the name tag on her desk, “You aren’t exactly subtle,  _ princess.”

_ Flamel regards Kiyoshi, resting her chin on her hands, “My nephew did one good thing before he died.  He changed the law of succession to support equal primogeniture.  So, I believe the word you are looking for is Queen.”  Flamel closes the file and returns to her work, “Subtly was more Sal’s thing that it ever was mine.  But subtly did not help him or his wife when they went off to chase rumours in France.” _

_ Kiyoshi seems taken aback by how blunt Flamel had been.  A picture forms in Pegasus’s head as he tries and fail to piece together  _ why _ Reiko is showing him this. _

_ “I have a mission for you,” Flamel says-- _

Reiko pulls out of the memory and smirks.

“ _ I didn’t know _ !” Pegasus screams, desperate because he knows what’s coming, “You see!  I don’t know where the girl is!”

“On the contrary, you’ve told me everything I need to know,” Reiko laughs and turns her back on him.

“No!   _ No! _ ” His single eye rolls in his head, searching for a way out.  “Plant #1,041, I order you to--”

“Shut up,” Reiko’s words punch him in the gut.  She limps towards the door.

“ _ I made you _ ,” he screams uselessly.

“No, you didn’t.   _ I _ made me,” Reiko tells him.  She snorts and shakes her head, “You know, I was terrified of you for so long.  I threw up in Keith’s house after I saw you for the first time at the American Ministry, just from fear.  I thought you were a monster that I’d never get away from.  But now, after all of this…” she pauses and delivers the final crushing blow.  “You’re the biggest disappointment I’ve ever experienced.”

Reiko places her hand on the door handle, ready to leave, but the Pharaoh stops her and asks the most terrible question, “What do you want me to do with him?”

“ _ Kill me _ !” He begs, hysterical with fear, “ _ Don’t leave me with her!  Kill me, please!  Please _ !”

And Max watches as Reiko-- no, as Kiyoshi, the cold-hearted assassin, says, “I don’t really care.”

The door closes with a final click, leaving him with his judge, his jury, and his executioner.

“Please…” He pleas, hoping for mercy.  “Please…”

“You killed Solomon Mutuo,” she says, her voice ice cold, pupils blown wide like a hawk.  “You created the program that tortured hundreds of mages.  You’ve destroyed families.  You’ve raped little girls to satisfy your sick fantasies.”

“Please…”

“I always wondered by Bakura killed my uncle the way he did, trapped in a cell with no way to defend himself.  I never understood why he did it,” the Pharaoh tells him as she places her hands on either side of his head.  He can feel the sparks of her power burning the skin there.  “I do now.”

The Lady Pharaoh shoves a hundred thousand volts through his skull, frying him from the inside out.

It’s a long time before she lets him die.

* * *

 

Pete finds Reiko throwing up over the side of the Cerulean.  He doesn’t really know what to do about it.

It’s easy to forgive people in the heat of battle when you honestly think that you’re about to die.  It’s a lot more difficult to approach them afterwards when you’ve realized that you know absolutely nothing about who they really are.

So Pete just kind of goes, _Fuck it_ , and walks up to her because he’s got no better options.

“Hey,” he says, more than a little awkwardly.

Reiko raises her head to look at him bleakly.

“Hey,” she says back, wiping her mouth with her hand.

“Are… Are you alright?” Pete asks and immediately realizes that that was the dumbest thing he could have asked.

Reiko snorts, “Not really.”

“Is there… anything that I can, um, do?”

Reiko sits down hard on her ass and hangs her legs over the side of the ship.  Below them, the waves crash together in their endless cycle.  She signs. 

“Can you just… sit with me?” She asks.  Pete nods and does just that.

They sit in silence for a while, just watching the sun come up over the horizon, tinting the sky pink and orange and yellow.  Only a few short hours ago, Pete didn’t think that he’d get to see the sunrise again.  He’s never appreciated them before and now he can’t look away.

“Say something,” Reiko finally speaks.

Pete glances at her out of the corner of his eye, “Like what?”

“I don’t know.  Just something.”

Pete, with all this infinite wisdom, comes up with, “So, you’re, like, some super assassin lady, or something?”

Reiko snorts, a smile tugging at her lips, “Yes, Pete.  I’m a super assassin lady.”

“Or something?”

“Or something,” she confirms.

“What’s that like?”

“Lots of travel.  Meet a lot of new people.  Pay’s not that great, but the sort of immortality is a nice bonus,” Reiko chuckles half-heartedly.

“That sounds cool,” Pete nods, then his brain catches up with him.  “Wait?  Sort of immortality?”

“I’m actually over a hundred years old,” Reiko tells him.  His jaw drops.

“Holy shit, really?  That’s awesome! How the fuck’d you swing that?”

“Made a deal with the devil.  Though I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have that for,” she shrugs.

“What do you mean?”

“Usually, Hendrix would have healed me by now.  But she hasn’t, so I think I’m in the doghouse for going off mission and blowing up the island.”

“You… didn’t blow up the island, though.”

“No.  But I brought in the people that could.  And that’s not going to win me any brownie points,” Reiko shrugs.

Pete nods like he understands what she’s saying, even though he really doesn’t.

“So, what’s the plan after this?” Pete asks.

Reiko shrugs again, “I need to ask Tilla some questions.  Them I’m going to go look for an old friend and her kid, maybe her brother, too.  Hole up somewhere safe before the Head sends someone after me.  Figure out where to go from there.”

“Sounds interesting,” Pete mumbles, looking down at the sea below.  Just fucking ask.  “You… want some company?”

Reiko looks at him sharply, “What?”

“They think that I don’t know… Keith and Mook.  But I heard them talking about the Seedling program before Keith tried to kill that one mage from the Archives’ break-in.  I know what I am,” Pete swallows hard.  “There’s nothing for me here.  The Department’s going to be in shambles after everything that it lost on the island.  And even if it wasn’t, I don’t want to be here anymore.  So I was wondering--”

“If you could come with me?” Reiko finishes his sentence for him.

“Yeah,” he nods.  “Look, I get it if you don’t want me to.  But... I don’t know?  You clearly knew me from before and, well, maybe I could find out who I was before all this.”

It’s jarring to think that the only actual memories that he has are from the last six months.  It’s even more frightening to think that he doesn’t even know his own name.

Reiko bites her bottom lip before turning away from him and staring at the waves below.  She seems to debate with herself for a good minute before saying, “Misha.”

“What?”

“Your name is Misha.  I don’t know your parents' names because you never told me them.  But you came to the Seedling program when you were six, so you were old enough to remember your life before it,” she says.  “You said that men in hoods came to your house and killed your parents.  You had a Scottish accent.  So I can only assume that your family were killed by Death Eaters in the British war against Voldemort.  And you were six in 1990, so you were probably born in 1984.  That’s all I know for sure about who you are.”

Pete’s heart catches in his chest, his mind whirling.  He’s not American?  He’s actually four years older than he thought he’d been?  His parents are dead?  It goes against everything he knows about himself, but all that information had been implanted in his head by the Department.  So what does he actually know at the end of the day?

“Why did you convince me to talk to Keith about getting on this mission?” He finally asks.

Reiko smiles softly, “Because it would have made you happy.”

“What do you mean?”

She closes her eyes and leans back, kicking her legs against the side of the Cerulean, “You were the first friend I had in almost a hundred years, Misha.  We worked together to keep each other alive because it’s what we had to do to get through the Seedling program.  And when I saw you after, I thought… maybe you’d recognize me.  You didn’t,” she says that last bit without blame and that hurts more than it should.  “Getting to work with your hero would have made you happy, so I pushed you in that direction.  I thought, once the team became more established, I could ask you to recommend me to Keith, but I never thought that you’d do it from the beginning.”

I did it because I liked you, he thinks.  But instead, he says, “Maybe I did remember something from before.  Maybe not an actual memory, but a feeling.”

She looks at him for a moment before giving him a tired smile.  Reiko leans forwards, places a hand on one side of his face, and gently kisses his cheek.  Pete blushes so hard that his face feels like it’s on fire.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“Just… just thank you,” Reiko repeats herself and turns back to the sea.  Pete sighs, scooching towards her, and wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her until she lays her head on his shoulder.

“So, Misha, huh?”  He asks.  When she nods, Pete smirks, “Kind of a dorky name.”

“So’s Pete,” Reiko snarks back at him.

“Could get used to it, though,” he admits.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Reiko hums and closes her eyes.  Pete rubs her back comfortably and doesn’t point out that he can see her crying.

* * *

 

Cassie finds Meron Tadesse tinkering away in the engine room, covered head to toe in grease, wearing a battered old tank top and an equally battered pair of shorts.

“Hey,” she says awkwardly.  Meron doesn’t even turn around.

“What do you want?”

Cassie leans against one of the humming machines, sighing, “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Well, then you can get the fuck out,” Meron swaps out one of her wrenches for one of a different size.

Cassie squirms uncomfortably, “They found Almeida’s will under her bed.”

“Really?  Didn’t know that she could read or write,” Meron says, sounding uninterested.

“It was a video on an old camera,” Cassie admits. “She left me the Cerulean.”

Meron pauses momentarily, the muscles on her back shifting, and then she continues on like nothing happened.

“Of course, she did,” Meron snorts.

“I don’t want it,” she says.

“Good. You don’t fucking deserve it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cassie frowns.

Meron throws down her wrench and gets to her feet, planting her hands on her hips, “Like you don’t know.”

“No, I don’t actually.  Want to explain?”

“My mother left the Cerulean to some spoiled fucking white girl that she doesn’t even know, passing over every single person on this goddamn ship who’s infinitely better qualified for the job.  What’s what I fucking mean,” Meron spits out, clapping her hands together and tilting her head to the side.

“I’m a Major in the French Navy--” Cassie starts, but Meron interrupts her.

“Was a Major.  You’re missing in action, remember?  You live as off the grid as I do doing your shit with the Jackals.  Also, didn’t you only get to be a Major because of your grandfather, not because of something that you did?” She says, mockingly, “I bet you weren’t even supposed to see active combat until the Department of Mysteries decided to come and get you.”

It hurts because it’s because it’s true.  Cassie throws a right hook at her face, but Meron’s expecting it, ducking out of the way and letting Cassie slam her fist into the metal of the water tank she’d been fixing.

“Touch a nerve, did I?  How are you expecting to captain the Cerulean when you can’t even handle me getting under your skin?” Meron mocks her.

“I don’t want to captain this stinking ship,” Cassie throws back at her.

“Yeah, you do.  Because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be so fucking pissed,” Meron sneers.

“I don’t want the Cerulean,” Cassie says again, venom dripping from every word.

“Why?  Think you’re too good for it?  Like you’re too good for our mother?”

“She’s not my mother.  She didn’t raise me,” Cassie snarls.

“She didn’t raise me either, but that sure as fuck didn’t stop her from dying for you,” Meron spits angrily.

Cassie takes a step back.  They were never able to recover Almeida’s body before the island blew, “She died protecting both of us.”

“No, she died for you,” Meron pokes Cassie in the chest.  “She didn’t give a damn about me - never has.  She fucked my dad when she was drunk and thinking about your dad and I was the result.  She dealt with me, but she never wanted me.  She wanted her perfect husband and her perfect daughter and never failed to let me know that when I fucked up.

“It was always about you.   _Raymond_ never would _have done this to me… Cassandra would have been so much better at this than you…_ ” Meron snorts.  “That was all I heard my entire fucking life.  She wouldn’t give me or my dad the time of day, but then Raymond Blue calls her up out of nowhere--” It wasn’t out of nowhere, Cassie had been as good as dead and her family had been desperate enough to try to contact Almeida, “--and she drops everything to find you.  She hadn’t seen you since you were a baby and she loved you more than she would ever love me.”

Meron stands before Cassie, her arms tense at her side, her fists clenching until they shook with rage, “We didn’t question our captain when she gave us the order to turn this boat around.  We turned our back on a million dollar payload and we looked for you.  I looked for you, Cassandra.  I hunted the sea for the sister I should have hated.  And do you know what I found?”

Cassie can’t look Meron in the eye.  She remembers how their first interaction went, back when Cassie was eighteen and so green that she smelt of grass.  She’d hated Meron’s very existence because she’d been the reminder of what Cassie could have been if her father had stayed on the Cerulean.

“I found the daughter of the man who put this entire crew in danger so that my mother would think that it was her idea to dump you two on an island.  Because the life of a pirate stopped being so fun the moment that you came into the picture,” Meron sneers.  “You think that you’re better than me.”

“I don’t,” Cassie snaps.  It’s a lie, and they both know it.

“Yes, you do.  You think you’re better than me because you grew up in a fancy mansion with your rich daddy and your powerful grandfather.  You think you’re better than me because you were handed everything in life while I had to fight and sweat and bleed for it,” Meron holds up her left hand, showing off the missing half of her index finger.  “You think that you deserve this ship just because you walked onto it and my mother decided to give it to you, just like you’ve been given everything in your entire life.”

“You don’t know anything about me or what I’ve been through,” Cassie growls, feeling the White Dragon bubbling just under the surface.  She unconsciously tugs the electrical current running through the Cerulean, sending some of the machinery into chaos.  Who was Meron to decide what she was and wasn’t capable of, anyway?  It’s not like she was better than--

Cold runs through Cassie’s veins and suddenly she sees what Meron is talking about.  I don’t know anything about her either.  Who am I to judge?

“And neither did Almeida.  Didn’t stop her from making a stupid ass decision.  Stop fucking with my ship,” Meron rolls her eyes, pulling out her wand and firing a few spells in odd directions, calming the engines down.  Cassie watches as she turns her back, sits down on the floor again, and starts tinkering with one of the machines.

They stay like that for a while, just existing in stiff, awkward silence, before Cassie asks, “‘Your ship’?”

“Yeah.  My ship.  We all got together and had a fight to the death to decide who’d in command now,” Meron says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.  Then she sighs, “There was a vote.  I won.  We’re democratic like that.”

“Oh,” Cassie blinks and realizes that she’s speaking to the new captain.  She shouldn’t feel as disappointed as she does.  I never wanted the Cerulean… right?

Shit.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie grits out, feeling like she has to say something or be trapped in another impasse.

“About what?”

“About… Almeida.  And Tadesse.  And… Kendrick.”

Meron’s shoulders tense at the name of her dead boyfriend.  She puts down her tools with a soft clink.

“Thanks,” Meron says, uncharacteristically soft.

“If there’s anything I can do…” Cassie trails off, unsure of how to continue.

Meron rubs her shoulder, smearing grease on the already ruined tanktop, “Don’t strain yourself trying to be nice.  It’s fucking painful just watching.”

Cassie nods, mostly to herself, and almost walks away before Meron drops her head into her hands and asks in a voice that gives away just how tired she is, “If you ever… swing by Jamaica, can you swing by Kenny parents’ place?  I… don’t make landfall their as much as I want to.”

“Why?”

“I got pregnant a few years back.  Had a daughter,” Meron shrugs, trying so hard to sound blasé and failing miserably.  “She lives with Kenny’s parents.  Just… I don’t know.  Take her out for ice cream or something.”

Cassie remembers Pegasus saying something about Meron’s ‘screaming bastard’ while he taunted them after Almeida and Tadesse’s deaths.  Her eyes widen when she realizes that Almeida had never mentioned a granddaughter in all her attempts to talk to Cassie’s father.

Meron had made a hard choice, just like Almeida had the moment she put Cassie and her father on that beach all those years ago because she’d known that her daughter would have a better chance being happy away from the Cerulean than she would on it.  And she did it knowing that she’d get no reaction from Almeida, no matter what she did.  Meron did it because she loved this little girl so much and-- Cassie’s been so blind in her hatred of this place that she never even learned who Meron was as a person before shoving her away.

_I’m an aunt_ , Cassie realizes.  And for the first time in forever, she sees a sister in the place of a reminder of a past that never came to be.

Cassie swallows hard, pushing past everything that her parents had told her about not associating with the type of people on the Cerulean, and walks towards.  She sits beside Meron, crossing her legs under her, and earns herself a raised eyebrow and a confused look for her actions.

“What the fuck are you doing?”  Meron frowns.

“I screwed up,” Cassie admits, picking up one of the wrenches and twirling it between her fingers.  “I don’t know how to fix it, or even if I can at this point.  But… I want to try.  Maybe not with Almeida or the Cerulean, but with you.”

Meron looks her up and down before turning back to her engine and mumbling, “What if I don’t want you to?”

“Then I’m gone.  I won’t contact you again and we can both move on from this,” Cassie answers, giving Meron the out if she wants to take it.

Meron swallows hard, “That would be a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.  It would.”

They both glance at each other and, to Cassie’s surprise, smirk.

“Pass me that,” Meron orders, nodding to the wrench in Cassie’s hand.

When she does, Cassie asks, “What are you fixing, anyway?”

“Cooling system’s been on the fritz ever since that your red-haired friend hijacked it,” Meron explains.  And she keeps talking, describing the work that she’d need to do to get the Cerulean back up and running again, all the parts that she still needs to acquire.  She mentions cousins that Cassie didn’t know that they had, a whole family that she’s spent years hiding from because she was too ashamed to face that side of her.

And Cassie talks back, telling Meron about her time with the Jackals, about Leo and Odion and how she misses her brothers.  When Meron tells her about how she and her boyfriend met, Cassie briefly mentions a girlfriend that she’d had in high school, and how she’d thought that Seto Kaiba was cute in a nerdy kind of way.

It’s not forgiveness.  It’s way too early for that.  But it is something important, taking place nearly eight years late.

_I let my prejudice run wild,_ Cassie thinks.   _But I’ve got to be better than that.  And besides… we need the Cerulean.  And it will be all the more powerful with Meron at its head than it was without her._

Cassie calls her father that night to tell him that Almeida is dead.  He hangs up without saying a word.

Meron had yet to weep for her mother and father; Cassie hasn’t cried about Almeida either and probably neither of them ever would.  But Raymond Bleu, who’d once married the pirate captain out of Stockholm Syndrome-induced love, who’d once joined the Cerulean and fought and bled beside her, just might.

She doesn’t know what to think about it.  Cassie wonders if she ever will.


	17. System Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plane shakes again and Nurnuk grabs the armrest.
> 
> A mild bleep echoes throughout the cabin and a voice calls out, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We've hit a bit of unexpected turbulence. Please remain in your seats and fasten your seatbelts."
> 
> "Is this normal?" Nurnuk asks through gritted teeth. When she looks over at Serenity, the girl isn't facing her. Instead, she's facing the window with her hand pressed against the glass, blind eyes staring out into the world beyond.
> 
> "Something is wrong," the girl whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Merlin is owned by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Johnny Capps, Julian Murphy, Shine Television, and BBC One. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): Coca Cola is produced by the Coca-Cola Company.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of incest, inbreeding, interspecies marriage, classism, abuse, alcohol, impregnation, misogyny, induced suicide, mass murder, plane crashes, pregnancy, and labour.

“That’ll be ten galleons,” the man behind the cash tells Natsuki.  She gives him a polite smile as she hands over the money--  _ My money _ , her mind gleefully supplies.  She watches as he attaches her letter to the owl’s leg and leads it to the window so that it may begin it’s long journey east.

“Thank you,” Natsuki bows her head.

“It’s no problem, ma’am,” the man tells her.  “Though, if you’re planning on sending more letters to Japan, might I recommend that you purchase an owl of your own?  It’ll save you some gold in the long run.”

She bites her lip, “I’ll keep that in mind.  Have a good day, sir.”

Natsuki walks out of the Post Office and onto the bustling streets of Hogsmeade.  It’s midday and the summer sun shines down on her is warm and comforting.  She looks up and sees Hogwarts castle looming in the distant hills, swallowing hard.  Her husband and son had both attended that school, and now both were dead before their time.  In a few months, Amane would have to step through those doors, and nothing terrifies Natsuki more than losing her baby girl.

She’d walked through those doors herself just this morning and walked out feeling unfulfilled and disappointed, lacking any of the answers that she’d hoped to find.

She wonders down the main road, occasionally pausing to stare through the windows of the passing shops.  Natsuki wonders if Ryou had walked this way before on one of his trips through the town, holding hands with Igraine or laughing with Sam.  She remembers him mentioning them in his letters home, always speaking of them so fondly.

And then they’d tried to kill him.  Natsuki read in the Prophet the other day that Sam and Igraine had finally been released from St. Mungo’s.  Both were still recovering and spending time with their families before they would be returning to school the next year.  Natsuki frowns, Another thing for Amane to deal with.

The  _ Hog’s Head Inn _ is located off the main road and around a corner.  The bar smells of stale beer and the windows are so clouded with dirt that Natuki cannot see out of them.  A few tables are occupied already.  A giant man is getting drunk and playing cards with a hooded figure in a corner, while a witch with a surprisingly deep voice sat at the bar, taking shots of alcohol under her floor-length veil, much to the amusement of the young bartender.

“Natsuki!” Calls Viola Zabini from a table in the center, waving her arm above her head and looking cheerfully out of place in such a dingy room with her bright red robes and her shining smile.  Natsuki returns the grin and joins her at the table.

Within seconds, the young wizard behind the bar walks over.  He has short black hair, bright purple eyes, and wore a blue neckerchief around his throat, “What can I get you, ladies?”

“A glass of your finest wine,” Viola says before turning to Natsuki.  Ignoring the bartender’s rolling eyes, she asks.  “Would you like anything?”

Natsuki thinks of all the times that James would order for her at restaurants and how she’d eat and drink without tasting anything.  Once, before they’d moved to England, James had gotten her very drunk because he kept buying her glasses of wine.  She’d found out a week or so later that she was pregnant.

“Just a gillywater for me,” she says.  The bartender nods and walks back to his station.

“So?  How’d it go?” Viola asks.

Natsuki shrugs, “McGonagall thinks Amane should study abroad.  She said that it would be the best way to protect her from the fallout at Hogwarts.”

Viola hums in response, nodding her head, “Well, from her perspective, it would be the better option.  Not only does it keep the sister of a known mage safe from those who would harm her, but it also does wonders to keep the bad press at bay.  Hogwarts doesn’t need any  _ more _ reporters snooping around than they already do.”

Natsuki drums her fingers against the table, staring long and hard at the faded, old wood, “Ryou’s attack has been old news for months.”

“It’s not just going to be about Ryou.  Between the Malfoy heir starting school and the possibility that Harry Potter might make his first public appearance  _ ever _ , the last thing that McGonagall wants in her halls is Amane Andrews.”

“You know, if you’re trying to help, you’re not doing a very good job,” Natsuki tells her, scowling.

“I’ve been dealing with bad press for years,” Viola says, leaning back in her seat.  “After a while, you start being able to predict what they want out of you.”

“So… What would you do?” Natsuki asks hesitantly.

Viola sighs, “It’s not about what  _ I’d _ do.  It’s about what you want to do.  If you want to go home, I’ll help you get there.  I’ll even lend you the money for a Port Key.  But if you don’t, I’m still going to be in your corner.  You know that, right?”

Natsuki closes her eyes, trying to control her breathing.  The bartender comes back with their drinks, placing them on the table between them.

Viola takes a sip of her wine and makes a face, “Em!  I thought that I asked for your finest bottle.”

“And I gave it to you,” Em responds cheekily.

“This is practically vinegar.”

“It’s what I’ve got until my boss comes back from whatever job his brother’s got him doing this time,” Em crosses his arms over his chest.  “You want the fancy stuff?  The  _ Three Broomsticks _ is around the corner.”

Then, without warning, he slams a hand down on the table.  Natsuki jumps a foot in the air, her heart hammering against her ribs.   _ It’s not James _ , she tells herself.   _ It’s not James _ .  The giant man swears colourfully across the room, spilling his drink down his front.

Em looks at her with an apologetic smile, “Sorry about that.  Saw a bug.”  He showed her the palm of her hand, revealing a large beetle with horned antenna, “Aberforth would kill me if I let them infest the place.”

Natsuki looks around the smoky bar skeptically, wondering how Em thought that one tiny beetle was going to make a difference.

The bartender wandered off, shaking the hand that held the bug captive and muttering under his breath.  Natsuki thinks that she sees a flash of gold in his eyes he ducks around the corner into the kitchens and out of sight, but she’s probably just imagining things.

“I sent a letter to my family back in Japan before I came here today,” Natsuki admits.  “I haven’t spoken to them since I graduated.  My parents never approved of James and my brother tried to stop me before I left.”  She takes a drink of her gillywater, “I told them what happened.  Not the truth, but… that my husband was dead.”

Viola nods understandingly but lets her speak without interruption.

“I told them that I wasn’t ready to go home just yet,” Natsuki admits.  “And I’m not.  But even if I was, I can’t leave now because of the investigation.  There’s no way that they could trace James’s death back to me, but just in case…”

“You don’t want any reason for the Auror Department to suspect you,” Viola finishes.  “Smart move.”

“You would have experience with the matter,” Natsuki says, uncharacteristically brave.  She remembers the spell that Viola cast on her arm the day she’d visited, sending letters scrawling up her sleeve that told her of Ryou’s death and her husband’s involvement.

Viola chuckles and takes another sip of her sour wine, “Would you believe me if I said that I only killed one of my husbands?”

“I’d say that be a huge coincidence,” Natsuki raises an eyebrow.

Viola shrugs and finishes her glass.  She calls out for Em to grab her another drink, “Something decent, this time!”

“Again.   _ Three Broomsticks _ .  Just down the road,” Em shouts from the backroom, laughing through their familiar exchange.

Viola sobers when she turns back to Natsuki, “What do you know about my family?”

“Italian.  Old.  Very powerful.  Very rich.  If we were in Italy, you wouldn't be allowed to marry a foreigner ever since their Ministry passed the Pureblood Protection Act,” Natsuki answers, remembering her history classes.

Viola hums, smirking dangerously, “You know, for all the fanfare that these pureblood Brits make about being able to trace their family histories back a thousand years, they’re not the oldest magical families in the world.  Did you know that the earliest records of wizarding magic date back to 50 B.C. at the beginning of the Roman Empire.”

“But… that can’t be true.  The first wizards were the Three Kings, back in Egypt.  Everyone knows that,” Natsuki frowns.  James had written extensively about it in collaboration with Bathilda Bagshot early in his career.

“Everyone is wrong.  The oldest wand was found in the tomb of my ancestor, Olcinia Zabini, who died just before the turn of the millennium.  My family is as pure as anyone’s blood can get,” Viola says and thanks Em when he brings her a new drink, something dark that fizzes gently in its glass.  When she takes a sip, she blinks and asks him, “Did you get me muggle Cola?”

Em gives her a cheesy grin and two thumbs up.  She rolls her eyes at him and continues.

“Pureblooded,” Viola laughs, and it’s harsh and mocking, sending chills down Natsuki’s spine.  “Pure.  What utter  _ shit _ .”  She takes a sip of her drink.  “I am the result of over two thousands years of blood purity, and for what?  Am I better at magic than anyone else?  No.  Am I more fit to be alive than anyone else?  Certainly not.  Am I more valuable as a human being because of it?  Merlin, no.

“But do you know what it does mean?” Viola asks but doesn’t wait for Natsuki to respond.  “It means that my parents were brother and sister.”

Natsuki’s shock is palatable, “What?”

“These Brits, they don’t realize what their pureblood future is going to look like,” Viola sneers.  “There are less and less of them with every passing generation because there’s only a limited amount of people for them to pair their children off with.  I mean, they're already marrying their second and third cousins and it’s only been a thousand years.  What do they think is going to happen when they run out of those?”

Viola laughs, but it’s wet and helpless like she’s trying to hold everything back, “Infertility is such a huge problem back home; I was the only girl in a generation to get her period and once I had Blaise, they knew I could have children.  So my parents married me to my brother Kaeso.  And when the pox took him, they sold me to my other brother.  And then to my cousins and my uncle.

“When my mother died, my father petitioned the Ministry to allow him to take me as his next wife, to preserve the Zabini lineage,” Viola admits.  “So I killed him and ran here.”

Natsuki swallows hard, not knowing what to say.  Finally, she whispers, “I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You have Blaise, a son.  Your father had an heir.  Why would he…?”

“Blaise is a bastard,” Viola says.  “His father was a muggle I met when I was fifteen.”  She chuckles, “I know.  Seven husbands and my only child isn’t even legitimate?  How ironic...”

Natsuki reaches across the table and grasps Viola’s wrist, encircling it with her thin fingers, holding her until she could calm herself down.  She can’t remember the last time she’d had to comfort someone who wasn’t one of her own children.

“My nonna was a Black - she snuck in right before the Protection Act was passed.  She helped me move back here after she found out what I did.  She gave me some money and sent me looking for Em over there,” Viola nods her head towards the bartender, who’s pouring the veiled witch at the bar another line of shots.  “The centuries of inbreeding messes with your body, so he helps me get the potions I need to prevent my organs from shutting down.  They’re expensive, very illegal, and only prolonging the inevitable.  But they work.”

“What happened to your grandmother?” Natsuki says and thinks,  _ Merlin, she’s dying. _

“Went on the run.  Led the Ministry on a cross-country chase for two years before they caught her.  She was executed by the state last month,” Viola raises her glass in solemn salute.  “But I’m the fertile heiress of the Zabini family and my son is engaged to marry the daughter of a Department of Mysteries lackey, so between those two things I could get away with murder if I ever go back, as long as I start popping out babies.”

Natsuki had always wondered why Viola was still so insistent on Amane and Blaise getting married.   _ But Amane said something different, something about her wanting a daughter… _

“But enough about me.  You never answered my question,” Viola eyes her over her glass.

“Which question?”

“What are you going to do about your daughter?”

Natsuki thinks about lying, about saying that she was going to run off the moment that she got a response back from her parents.  But Viola’s too smart and will see through that in a minute.  So Natsuki finishes her gillywater and says, looking as helpless as she needs to be to get what she wants, “Not all of us are as lucky as you were to have a grandmother who’ll help us flee the country.  If the Auror Department doesn’t get me, my husband’s debt will.”

It had been a surprise to her when she’d been approached by a series of collectors who’d informed her that they’d loaned him hundreds of galleons to pay for research and travel expenses.  Contrary to what he’d told her, the Department of Mysteries had not paid for his many excursions.

“I’ll have to sell the house.  It’ll be enough, to cover it, but…” Natsuki mumbles and waits for Viola to take the hook.

“You can stay with us,” Viola offers and Natsuki smirks on the inside.

“That would be lovely.  Thank you,” Natsuki smiles politely.   _ What are you hiding?  _ She wonders.   _ And what do you want my daughter for? _

* * *

 

Ever since she was a little girl, Nurnuk has had a reoccurring dream.  In it, she is surrounded by sunlight with the blue sky above her and a sea of white clouds below.  Nurnuk flies, filled with wonder and excitement, her eyes full of joy.

She’d asked Nurnok about it once, wondering if they’d had a similar dream.  But her sister had frowned and shook her head, saying that she’d only dreamed of the tunnels of Gringotts and the fires of their hearths.  It sometimes made Nurnuk wonder if she was the younger sister, allowed to explore the world while her sister stayed in the depths of their home.

_ I guess we’ll never know, _ Nurnuk things sadly as she stares out the window of the airplane, gripping the arms of her seat until her knuckles turned white.

“This is a terrible idea,” she says aloud as the plane shudders again.  A thin strap of fabric is pulled across her middle and the human who designed this death trap of a metal tube apparently believed that it would be enough to keep her safe in the case of an emergency.

“It’s the least conspicuous way for us to travel,” Serenity Wheeler responds from the seat beside her.  The blind girl gives her a comforting smile, but all it makes Nurnuk want to do is curl up and hide.

“No goblin is meant to be this high in the air.  I miss the earth beneath my feet.  I miss the tunnels,” Nurnuk squeezes her eyes shut as her stomach threatens to heave.  The baby kicks at her ribs, as agitated as its mother.   _ I have a bad feeling about this. _

The mage named Strings had placed an illusion on Nurnuk and her entourage after Catherine had managed to secure the tickets, disguising them as human children.  The British woman had stayed behind, hugging Strings and giving firm handshakes to the rest of the mages before driving off.

“May I?” Serenity asks, holding out her hand for Nurnuk to take.  The goblin queen extracts her long nails from the armrests and grips the girl’s hand like a lifeline.  She knows that she’s signing up for by touching her.

“Could you… tell me about my baby?” Nurnuk asks hesitantly.

Serenity nods, but her brow furrows in a way that makes Nurnok nervous.  Then, the girl smiles, “It’s healthy if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Why did you frown?” Nurnuk panics, but Serenity just laughs.

“I forgot for a second that goblin pregnancies are six months instead of nine and was wondering why it had lungs already.”

Nurnuk blinks, “It has lungs?”

Serenity nods, “And ears.  It can hear you talking to it.”

“My baby can hear me…” Nurnuk smiles, feeling the tears welling in her eyes.   _ Oh sister, our baby could hear you singing. _

“Do you want to know its gender?” Serenity asks.

Nurnuk shakes her head, “No.  I know that it’s different with humans, but goblins do not assign gender based on our genitalia.  I will ask them later on, once my child has figured that question out for themselves.”

“I didn’t know that,” Serenity says.  “It’s a good system to have.”  Then she tilts her head in question, “Do you name your children at birth, too?  Or do you wait until later to do that as well?”

“Names are given at birth.  When else would they be given?” Nurnuk asks, confused.

“I thought… Oh.  Are goblin names unisex?”

“Are human names not?”

Serenity shrugs, “Some are.  Some aren’t.”

“But what happens if you give a child a name that is not in line with their gender?” Nurnuk asks, confused.

“You can change it,” Serenity answers.

“You can name yourself?  Incredible,” The goblin queen says, astounded.   _ Humans have such fascinating traditions. _

“Kurnoff and I never really had a chance to talk about our cultural differences in child rearing before we had to go to war,” Serenity mentions and Nurnuk remembers that Shaloena was one of the handful humans she knew of to ever marry outside her species.

“There have been half-goblin children before,” Nurnuk says.   _ Not many, but some do survive infancy. _

The plane shakes again and Nurnuk grabs the armrest.

A mild bleep echoes throughout the cabin and a voice calls out, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.  We’ve hit a bit of unexpected turbulence.  Please remain in your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”

“Is this normal?” Nurnuk asks through gritted teeth.  When she looks over at Serenity, the girl isn’t facing her.  Instead, she’s facing the window with her hand pressed against the glass, blind eyes staring out into the world beyond.

“Something is wrong,” the girl whispers.  She whips her head around, “Your Majesty, I need you to look out the window for me.”

Nurnuk swallows and leans across Serenity, squinting out at the darkening skies.  Her heart leaps into her chest.

“There’s someone outside,” Nurnuk gasps.

There’s a figure flying alongside the plane, their yellow and black robes flapping in the wind.   _ They’re not using a broom, _ Nurnuk realizes as it starts to get very cold, ice forming in the corners of the window.

The plane starts shaking in earnest and the lights begin to flicker.  One of the passengers starts to scream.  

Seto and Mai Valentine careen out of their seats and across the aisle, waking Strings, Kuirmet, and Skrags.  No one stops them; the nearest flight attendant is crying hysterically at the head of the plane.

“Dementors,” Nurnuk says, her voice full of dread.  “They’ve sent Dementors.”

She can’t see them - only witches and wizards can.  And luckily for them, Dementors don’t affect goblins as much as they do humans; the goblin hive-mind connection instinctively working to dispel the Dementor’s depressive magic across multiple people instead of just one.  Nurnouk doesn’t envy her human companions, watching as the weight settles in over their shoulders.

“They can’t get in, can they?” Mai whispers and the last of the cabin lights go out.

Skrags shakes his head, “They’re not ghosts.  They can’t move through walls.”

“How did they find us?” Serenity asks.

“Nurnuk might have said something, maybe by accident,” Nurnuk says.  “Or the Department has someone inside the airport.  Or--”

_ My baby can hear me sing _ , she thinks irrationally.   _ I don’t want it to listen to this. _

People are shouting, panicking in their seats.  A human child howls in the back.  The plane shakes so hard that those in the aisles can barely stand.

The figure outside veers in close enough that Nurnuk can see that it’s a human woman with short auburn hair and coal black eyes.  The witch grins, all pearly white teeth, and mouths, “Found you.”

The witch shoots off to the front of the plane and Mai grabs her phone, frantically calling someone named Alister as tears roll down her face, begging to hear her daughter’s voice.  Seto’s knees give out and he falls to the floor, violently scratching at his face, screaming something about his father.  Strings looks like he’s gagging on something, his face a sheet of white.  Serenity wavers before tilting to the side and falling unconscious.

And then, once all the mages are incapacitated, Nurnuk finds out why the Department sent Dementors.

“I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry,” the pilot’s voice flows into the cabin over the intercom.  The man is crying.  “I’m sorry.”

The plane takes a nosedive.

“Protect her!” Kuirmet screams in Gobbledygook at Skrags, launching himself towards the cockpit.  Nurnuk feels as he sinks his magic into the metal door and wrenches it off its hinges.  One of the pilots is already dead, falling half out of his seat with his skull bashed in, a bloody fire extinguisher hanging from his limp fingers.  Kuirmet draws his sword from under Strings’ failing illusion and cuts the second pilot down rather than deal with him, pushing his corpse from his chair.

Nurnuk and Skrags race up behind him as Kuirmet fumbles with the controls

“How do you fly this thing?” Skrags shouts.

_ Maglubiyet, first of the goblins, give me wisdom, _ Nurnuk prays as her stomach begins to scream and water sloshes out from between her legs.   _ Do not let your children die here. _

She grabs blindly at the two handles in front of the pilot’s chair, pulling them towards her with all of her strength.  The engines roar behind them as the dashboard controls scream wildly.  Skrags flings himself towards the second set of handles and does the same.

The plane pulls up slightly, but not enough.  Below, Nurnuk can see the ground.

“Your Majesty!” Nurnuk wipes around to see Seto Kaiba stumbling into the cockpit, pale with vomit staining his shirt.  His arms are armoured in white scales and his eyes are a wild, electric blue.  Behind him, Mai Valentine has transformed into a magnificent harpy and carries a groggy Serenity in her arms.  The witch must have called off the Dementors, believing that they were done for.  “Your Majesty, we have to leave!”

Skrags throws Nurnuk at Seto before following himself, grabbing onto the Pharaoh with Kuirmet.  They abandon the cockpit and run to the exit, where Strings is holding himself up against the airlock.

_ This is insane, _ Nurnuk thinks once before the door opens and they’re sucked outside.

Seto transforms in midair, wings exploding from his back as they fall.  Nurnuk clings to him with all her might, ignoring the terrible cramping in her stomach, the wind rushing past them as the White Dragon takes flight mere feet above the earth’s surface, catching Strings and Serenity on his back.

Mai lets out a shriek.  Nurnuk whips her head around to see her beak open wide, pulsing waves of sound rushing out toward the witch.  It hits the woman point blank, sending her flying backward and out of sight.  Strings shrouds them in the clouds and the White Dragon glides upwards towards the city on the horizon.

The plane hits the ground in a gut-wrenching scream of twisting metal and flame.  Nurnuk doesn’t have time to process what happens when she doubles over in pain, clutching her stomach.

Serenity, barely conscious, moves a hand to Nurnuk’s belly.  Her eyes widen, “The baby’s coming.”

“ _ No _ .  No, it’s too early!” Skrags cries.

“Seto, we need to get to a hospital!” Serenity screeches over the wind.  The White Dragon pumps its wings and hurtles toward San Francisco as fast as he can.

* * *

 

The secure room is white, sterile, and oppressively quiet as Seto sits down beside Skrags.  Nurnuk lays sleeping on the bed beside them with a monitor is hooked up to her pulse, beeping softly in the rhythm of her heartbeat.

It had been over a day since Seto had come bursting into the UCSF maternity ward under the cover of Strings’ illusion, finding the first mage friendly doctor he could get a hold of, and convincing them to drop everything to help the goblin queen give birth.  He’d been told later that they’d had to perform an emergency C-section, but unknown differences in goblin physiology had nearly killed both mother and baby mid-surgery.

“It’s going to be alright,” Seto says.  Skrags looks up from where he’d been staring at the ground between his knees.

“The doctors don’t know if… They didn’t say…”

“There’s a ninety percent survival rate,” Seto rationalizes.  “I talked with one of the nurses.  The fact that the baby has lungs will help--”

“For  _ humans _ .  They don’t know anything about goblin babies,” Skrags says, sounding close to tears with worry.

“I know that the people here are never going to stop trying.  I know the longer your child stays alive, the better its chances are,” Seto pauses and takes a breath.  “I know that I’ll lay down my life to make sure that happens.”

Skrags looks at him and swallows, “Thank you.”  He waits a moment before asking, “Have you ever been a father?”

Seto nods, “Not this cycle, but in others.”  He smiles softly, “The first time I held my first born, I was so terrified that I’d drop him.  Kisara laughed at me, but she wasn’t much better.  Jono had to teach us how to support his head.  He was always so much better with kids that I was.”

“Jono the Brave was good with kids?” Skrags says incredulously.  “They don’t tell that in the legends.”

“They don’t say a lot of things,” Seto smirks.

The goblin lets out a wet, choking laugh, “What am I supposed to do?  I’m their guardian, but how am I supposed to protect them from this?  I’ve already lost my other wife because I wasn’t fast enough.  What if I fail again and lose both Nurnuk and the baby?”

Seto can’t answer that.  He’d outlived his first son by over a decade.

Nurnuk grunts as her eyes flutter open, a long whine escaping from her throat.  Immediately, Skrags is at her side, whispering in rapid-fire Gobbledygook that Seto can only slightly understand, telling her what had happened.  Skrags presses a soft kiss to his wife’s lips, his hands intertwining with her’s.

Seto rises and gives the two of them some privacy.

Kuirmet is waiting for him in the hallway.  The goblin warrior tosses Seto a scroll of parchment and his heart skips a beat when he recognizes it as Luggus’s treasure, the piece of blackmail that had kept the goblins safe from the Department for centuries.

“Her Majesty ordered me to give you this if something went wrong,” Kuirmet tells him.

Seto frowns, “Nurnuk told you to--”

“Not this Nurnuk.  The other one.  She gave me those orders the morning she died,” Kuirmet says.  “She said that you’d know what to do with it.”

The goblin turns and walks over to where Serenity is, hopping up onto the chair beside her.  She takes his hand and they lean together, whispering softly and catching up on the hundreds of years they’ve spent apart.

His phone rings.  Seto puts Mai on speaker, “What did you find out?”

“I got a hold of Leo,” she answers.  “The other Nurnuk must have said something by accident to tip the Department off because they were watching all non-magical routes out of England.”  She pauses, “Catherine Arkana didn’t check in after we left for the airport.  Scotland Yard just found her body in a public bathroom.  All signs point to the Department.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Seto hisses.

“What are we going to do now, Seto?” Mai asks.

Seto glances down at the scroll, noting that the protections that he’d once sensed on it had disappeared entirely.  It was just a sheet of paper now.  He could read it if he wanted to.  But he doesn’t.

“Atem’s plan is going to work.  But even if it does,” he turns the parchment in his hands, “we need to find a witch named Amane Andrews.”


	18. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could kill me, Keith thinks, remembering the Spirit with his black teeth and severed throat, grinning sadistically as he’d thrown Unspeakables into the air with the wave of a hand. So why hasn’t he?
> 
> I don’t want to, Bakura had said in Keith’s apartment that day that he’d shown up out of nowhere.
> 
> He grits his teeth, Well, fuck that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of panic attacks, child abuse, child murder, amputations, violence, past character death, infidelity, suicidal thoughts, homophobia, and loss of control.

Keith sits in the brig of the  _ Cerulean _ , stripped of his wand, his identity, his life, and thinks,  _ What the hell am I doing? _

The moment that he and his team crash-landed onto the deck of the massive, metal ship, they’d been confronted by the mutated bird-dragon form of the Lady Pharaoh, red feathers erupting from her back as lightning danced across her long, snake-like body.  Behind her, kneeling over Pegasus’s rotting corpse, was a grey figure with dark bat wings and a rack of horns, his arm stretched over his head and holding the Millennium Eye like a trophy.

Keith had known who he’d been in an instant.  So, delirious and half mad with pain, he’d charged at Bakura, preparing to die so that he could kill Thief King with his bare hands.

He’d been stopped before he could even get near the mage.  The crew of the  _ Cerulean  _ had pinned Keith to the ground, shouting in a myriad of languages and pointing guns and wands at his head.  Only after Tilla had handed over the Millennium Spellbook had the Thief King given the order that saved Keith's life.

_ And for what? _  Keith wants to punch something, wants to hit something, but his entire body hurts so much that he lays there and waits for death.

Everything that he’d known was a lie.  Trista Latner, the small woman with dark hair and dark eyes, was his mother.  She’d had him  and his twin brother for an experiment, something about documenting the changes that aging and de-aging had on the body over time.  Latner had required two wizarding children -  _ For comparison tests, _ she’d written in the notes that the Spellbook revealed - and had been forced to carry her own after being denied the pair that she’d initially requested.

Latner had kept her sons around until they’d stopped being useful sometime in the seventies when she’d shipped them off to France to join the Seedling program.  There in the Gardens, Latner requested that the two of them face off against each other for her own entertainment.

_It's crucial to blood Seedlings early_ , Latner's notes had said.  _Merlin only knows how late these two are joining the program._

Keith grips her hair, trying to piece together everything that he’d learned in the last few days.  He feels sick to his stomach as his fingers thread through the strands, remembering how Latner had written that she’d permanently transfigured his hair.  Keith’s biological father had had a jealous wife in a high position within the Department, and Latner had changed his hair from black to blond to hide his true parentage.

_ Nothing about me is real _ , Keith thinks and curls up into a ball, wanting it all to stop.

When he opens his eyes, Bakura is inside his cell.

Keith doesn’t think about it - he just attacks, running headfirst toward the Thief King and then  _ right through him _ , crashing into the metal bars.  Keith curses and blinks the stars from his eyes, “What?  Did you steal Ryou’s powers too when you killed him?”

Keith’s head is pounding with a migraine, but even he doesn’t miss the look of confusion that passes over the mage’s face.

“What are you talking about?”

Keith bares his teeth, “I asked you to save him, you piece of shit!  Not kill him!”

“Keith, what--”

“Ryou!” He screams, taking a swing at the mage.  Bakura effortlessly blocks him, then ducks low, kicking his foot out as he spun, and catches Keith behind the knee.  He sprawls backward and hits the wall.  Bakura turns him around and pins his face to the metal, his grip cold and solid.

“Stop.  Fuck, Keith.  Just stop,” the mage hisses.  And that’s when Keith realizes that while everything else about his life may be fake, but how he’d loved Ryou had been real.  And his hatred of Bakura is just as powerful.

Keith uses his entire body weight to force himself off the wall, catching the King by surprise.  He kicks back, planting his foot in Bakura stomach and shoving, sending the mage into the far wall.  Keith throws a quick series of jabs that Bakura manages to duck around, but the mage is still sucking wind as he twists and spins away from him.

_ He could kill me, _ Keith thinks, remembering the Spirit with his black teeth and severed throat, grinning sadistically as he’d thrown Unspeakables into the air with the wave of a hand.   _ So why hasn’t he? _

_ I don’t want to _ , Bakura had said in Keith’s apartment that day that he’d shown up out of nowhere.

He grits his teeth,  _ Well, fuck that. _

Keith reaches in over Bakura’s guard, using the extra length in his arms to his an advantage, and grabs the mage’s shoulder with on hand and his arm with another.  Keith sweeps his leg out and catches the back of Bakura’s thigh, twisting the Thief King’s body.  But before he can flip the mage like Kitamori once flipped him, Bakura uses Ryou’s power to slip away, phasing through Keith’s fingers like a ghost.  Bakura ducks, rolling around Keith and throws himself feet first at the wall.  The mage jumps off of it and spins midair, unfurling his leg and kicking Keith in the head with all of his strength.

Keith falls to the floor, his jaw connecting with an audible crack.  Stars appear on the sides of his vision, blinking in and out as he contemplates getting up again.  But Bakura makes that decision for him, climbing onto his back and pressing a firm hand into his neck, holding him there with surprising power.

“Keith.  Stop.  Just stop,” Bakura says.

Tears spring uncontrolled from Keith’s eyes.   _ Fuck.  Fuck _ , he thinks as he shakes, fingers clawing at the concrete floor as it gets harder and harder to breathe.

The pressure on his back disappears.  Bakura turns him over, looking terribly concerned, but Keith doesn’t care because his lungs can’t get air to his body fast enough, his chest heaving with each breath.

“Shit, Keith.  I think you’re having a panic attack,” the mage says, his eyes wide with shock.  “Can I touch you?  I’m going to try and help.”

Keith reaches out in his terror and grabs onto Bakura’s sleeve, just wanting something to ground himself with.  Bakura takes that as permission and hauls him onto one of the benches, Keith’s limbs limp and cooperative.  The mage places Keith’s hands on his head, stretching his elbows out on either side and tells Keith to match his breathing.

“Come on.  In and out.  One more time,” Bakura tells him as he kneels in between Keith’s legs.

“I-- I can’t--”  Keith says between shaking gulps of air.

“It’s okay.  It’s going to be okay,” the Thief King promises.  “I can control air, Keith.  I am not going to let you suffocate, I swear.”

That should not be as reassuring as it is.

They sit there for a long while, Bakura directing Keith’s breathing until he is cold and sweating.  Tear tracks run down Keith’s face and he squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to keep them at bay.  He leans down and presses his forehead against the Thief King’s.

“ _ Why? _ ” Keith rasps out when he’d finally able to speak again, eyes fluttering open.  The Thief King has startlingly purple eyes, he notes.  “You were supposed to save him?  Why didn’t you?”

Bakura doesn’t answer right away.  Keith feels the mage gently pulling his arms away from his head and placing his palms firmly against the crappy metal bench that they’re sitting on.

“Ryou really did love you,” Bakura says, his voice so small, like he’s admitting some terrible secret.

Keith wrenches himself away and refuses to miss the warmth that radiated off the Thief King's body, “How would you know?”

“Because he told me,” Bakura answers as he stands.  Keith feels the bottom of his stomach drop as the mage walks over to the other side of the tiny cell, leaning against the wall before sliding down to the floor and looking so fucking uncomfortable.  “Time passes differently inside the Ring.  When you asked me to save him… Keith, for me that was centuries ago.”

Keith looks up just in time to see the Thief King wrap his arms around himself, fingers clutching at his arms.

_ He doesn’t want to talk about this, _ he thinks and remembers how the Spirit had once told Keith that he had been twenty-one years old when he died.   _ He’s just a kid. _

“Ryou used to talk about you a lot, when he wasn’t talking about his family.  For the longest time, I thought you were his father,” Bakura says and,  _ fuck _ , that’s enough to bring back Keith’s tears, his hands covering his mouth to stifle the agonizing scream that wants to erupt from his throat.  “We had fifty years together in the Ring.”

And it’s the way that Bakura says that that causes the pieces in Keith’s head to click together, forming a complete puzzle.  He remembers Ryou’s admission,  _ I think I like boys, too _ , and Kitamori’s guess that the King Commander wasn’t interested in women and how the legends say that the Thief King tried to steal the Lady Pharaoh’s heart.   _ Maybe the Thief King didn’t want the Pharaoh,  _ Keith thinks _.  Maybe he wanted her husband instead. _

Keith looks up at Bakura and realizes that,  _ holy shit _ , he might be looking at Ryou’s  _ boyfriend _ of nearly half a century.

“But why did you kill him?” Keith asks again, so utterly confused.

“Ryou… He made a choice,” Bakura swallows.  “The same choice that Yuugi made so that Atem could live.  The same choice that someone else is going to have to make so the King Commander can come back.”

“To die?”  Keith asks, thinking of the article that he’d read on Yuugi Mutuo, the blindingly intelligent girl from San Francisco.  To think that that girl was dead now, just so that some being from the dawn of time could live, makes his skin crawl.

Bakura doesn’t answer, but the fact that he can’t hold Keith’s gaze is all that he needs.

“Fuck you,” Keith says, but can’t find any of the spite he wants to put into his voice.  He feels so empty inside, so done with everything.  “Get out.”

“Keith, wait--”

“Get the fuck out of my cell,” he snaps, gripping at the bench to keep himself from falling over.  He feels so lightheaded, almost drunk with his agony.

Bakura nods and stands, fists clenched at his sides.  He walks towards the bars, but stops suddenly, his back turned to Keith.

“Captain Tadesse is going to want to speak with you before we make landfall tomorrow.  Just like she’s talking to the rest of your team.,” Bakura tells him.  Before Keith can throw another punch at him, the Thief King slides through the bars and disappears entirely once he’s on the other side.

Keith breaks.  Howling and screaming, kicking at the walls and clawing at his face.  He’s considered bashing his head against the metal bench just to end it all when his wallet falls out of his pocket, wizard coins and muggle money spilling everywhere.  And there, in the middle of the mess, is the ripped half of the Andrews family portrait.  Keith looks at it just in time to see Amane Andrews slide out the side like she usually does when he looks at it, leaving only her brother.

Ryou stays in the picture as Keith picks it up, smiling and waving, his blue eyes soft and carefree in a way that Keith doesn’t remember him being in life.  That sticks with him for some reason, and Keith doesn’t understand  _ why _ it does until he’s sitting on the bench again, his head in between his knees and just trying to keep his breathing even.

Then it hits him.

The Spirit of the Millennium Ring had been horrifically scarred, with chunks of flesh missing from his body and his throat cut wide open, blood endlessly flowing from his wounds.  But his eyes had been bright red, whereas Thief King Bakura’s had been purple.

_ I asked him why he killed Ryou.  And he never  _ actually _ answered me _ , Keith rationalizes, staring down at Ryou’s blue-eyed portrait with dawning horror.  He swallows around the lump in his throat.   _ Yuugi Mutuo’s eyes had been blue too.  And that Pharaoh girl had purple eyes, just like Bakura. _

Had the Spirit of the Millennium Pendant had red eyes as well?

It’s stupid and there’s no way that Keith can prove it, not with Bakura long gone.  But it’s a tiny glimmer of  _ hope _ , the last flickering light in the darkness, and Keith latches on to it like the miracle it just might be.

_ Blue and red make purple _ , he thinks desperately.   _ Maybe Bakura doesn’t even realize it, but Ryou could still be alive somewhere in his subconscious _ .

It’s the only thing that makes him stand up and go with the  _ Cerulean’s _ captain when she comes to unlock the door to his cell, trailing behind the other handcuffed members of his team, and onto the bridge.

* * *

Kisha sits at Delphia’s bedside, watching as one of the  _ Cerulean’s _ doctors slides a needle into the older woman’s arm.  It’s connected to something that the doctor calls an IV Drip, a bag of clear liquid that hangs from a rod.

“She’s severely dehydrated,” the doctor says like it explains everything.  He looks nothing like the muggle doctors in the books that Kisha reads, with no white lab coat or clipboard.  Instead, he’s wearing a dirty green shirt and shorts with open-toed sandals.  He glances over at Kisha and raises an eyebrow.  “What?”

“Nothing…” She looks down at Delphia’s withered wrist.  The doctor walks away to talk to another patient down the row.  Beside her, Royce taps her shoulder.

“We’ve got a visitor,” he says.  Kisha looks up and sees Duke Devlin standing awkwardly at the foot of Delphia’s bed.

“Hey,” Duke says, giving them a small aborted wave.

Kisha quickly scans his body, looking for weaponry, but sees none.   _ Why is he unarmed? _  She wonders silently.

“Hi,” she answers back.

“I’ve been talking with our leaders.  We’re going to docking in San Francisco in about an hour,” Duke tells them.  “You three will be remaining there with us until we return you to the International Confederation.”

“San Francisco?” Kisha frowns and then remembers what Keith the Unspeakable had said about the city being under mage control.

Duke nods to someone that Kisha can’t see before three people walk into view.  The man in the middle is ridiculously tall in comparison to the other two, but he’s thin in the same way that Delphia is and clinging to a similar IV Drip like it’s a cane.  Duke introduces him as Matthew Jacques.

The other two are short, around five feet tall.  The woman has a shock of long, red dreadlocks, while the man is someone that Kisha recognizes - the white-haired boy with the scar from the  _ Putnam’s _ .  Both of them have bright purple eyes and seem to exist with an aura that makes Kisha wonder if they’re actually human.

Kisha scowls at him, “I guess it wasn’t a transfiguration accident after all?”  When he tilts his head in confusion, she clarifies, “You said you shrunk and got white hair--”

“In an accident.  Right,” the mage nods, remembering their brief conversation back in William's Abbey.  Then he shrugs, “To be fair, I needed you to calm down.”

“You landed me in prison, asshole.”

The girl speaks up, “That was not anyone’s intention.  We had no idea that the Department would attack its own citizens.”  She extends a hand, “My name is Atem.  This is Bakura.  He and I are in charge of the San Francisco mages.”

“You’re Kisha Borrego,” Bakura says, not asks.  Then he turns to Kisha’s companions, naming them in turn.

“You will be treated as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention, meaning we will provide you with food, hygiene, clothing, and medical care while you stay in San Francisco,” Atem explains.  “You will be bound with magic to my brother, Matthew, for the duration of that time.”

“Bound?” Royce frowns, “You want to control us?”

“For your protection as well as ours,” Bakura says.  “We will not abuse this power.  You have our word.”

“If you wish to make requests, you will be welcome to do so at any time,” Atem continues.

Kisha glances at Royce, who’s suddenly perked up with nervous energy.  She knows what he’s going to ask before he says it.

“Is there… any way that we can get in contact with our families?  To let them know that we’re alright?” He asks and Kisha knows that he’s thinking of Shawn, his boyfriend.  Royce must be terrified, considering that he has no way of knowing if Shawn was on the island when it went down in flames.  Kisha thinks about her mom and dad for the first time since she was taken and is almost overtaken by the wave of yearning that flows through her.

A look is shared between the four mages.  Matthew Jacques answers, “We don’t know if it is possible, but we are willing to try as long as you do not give away your location or what's happening.”

Royce nods, nervously picking at his fingers.

“Is there anything else?” Atem asks.

“Duke said that you’d be returning us to the Confederation,” Kisha says.  The four of them make various noises of affirmation.  “When?”

“We’ve received word from one of our contacts that the American Minister for Magic is going to be speaking to the Confederation two months from now,” Duke explains.  “We’re planning on crashing that.”

Kisha frowns, “The Confederation is one of the most secure buildings in the wizarding world.  You can’t just break into the place!”

“People said that about the Department’s island and the American Ministry of Magic.  That didn’t stop us then.  It won’t stop us now,” Bakura confirms.

“Whatever you want, they’re not going to give it to you just because you returned us,” Kisha argues.

“You’re not the only leverage that we have,” Atem says.  “Now, would you please submit to the binding?  It will only take a minute.”

Matthew uses magic unlike anything Kisha has ever seen before.  He has them write their names on a piece of paper with a black muggle marker with ink that seems to dry the moment it’s used.  Matthew mutters to himself while he wraps a loose string from his shirt around the paper.

“I’m going to test it,” Matthew says, turning back to Kisha and Royce.  “Will you stand up, please?”

Kisha feels her limbs move on their own and suddenly she’s up and out of her chair alongside Royce.

Matthew nods, satisfied with his work, “I’m not as good as Amanda, so any request has to be phrased as a question.”  He looks up at Kisha, holding up the wrapped paper before sliding it into his pocket, “We’ll burn this just before we return you to the Confederation.”

The mage then limps off, collapsing next to a bed that contained a barely conscious one-legged man.

“Get some rest,” Bakura tells them.  “We’ll come around when it’s time to disembark.”

He and Atem nod to Duke, who stays behind and watches the two of them leave hand in hand.  Duke moves forward, sinking into the chair on the other side of Delphia’s bed.

“How is she doing?” He asks, tilting his head towards the sleeping older woman.

“Could be a lot worse?” Kisha answers.  “Thank you for helping us.”

“We’re not doing it for you,” Duke says, repeating the words that she’s heard since they came to the  _ Cerulean _ .  “But, you’re welcome.  I guess.”

There’s a silent, awkward pause where the three of them try to look anywhere except at each other.  Royce finally break it by asking, “So what can you do?”

“Hmm?” Duke raises an eyebrow, confused.

“I always heard that mages had weird powers or something.  So what can you do?” Royce repeats.

Duke smirks, “I'm not a mage.”

Kisha’s eyes widen, remembering how Duke had introduced himself as a squib back that Putnam’s, “You’re a muggle?”

“Non-magic,” Duke corrects her.  “And yeah.”

“But you know about magic!”

“Hard not to, in this business,” he says.  “There’s lots of non-magics who know.”

“I mean, I guess,” Royce says.  “My folks are like you and they know.  But I never thought…”

“What?  That non-magics and magics could exist together?  Seriously, what do they teach you in those wizarding schools?” Duke snorts, leaning back in his chair.

“So, is that your plan here?  To end the Statute of Secrecy?” Kisha asks.

Duke blinks, looking a bit amused, “Right now, we’re not thinking  _ that _ far ahead.  We just want you to stop killing mages.”

“We don’t  _ kill _ mages.  If they can’t convert them, the Department sends wizard born mages to a camp, away from society,” Royce tells him.

Duke rolls his eyes, “I bet your parents also told you that your favourite pet just went to live on a farm after it died.  The Department  _ kills _ mages that can’t conform to wizard standards.”  He licks his lips, looking tired, “About a month ago, we had an eight-year-old girl wash up on our shores after she escaped execution on their island.  You’ve spent enough time in their cells to know that there’s no camp.”

Duke clenches his fists, “My sister, Lindsey, was fourteen when they took her.  She could control plants.  She would…” he coughs roughly and Kisha realizes that he’s trying not to cry, “...She would grow vegetables in the tiny garden box outside her bedroom window.  Carrots and tomatoes and shit like that.  Lindsey never hurt anyone - hell, she went vegan when she was eight, wouldn’t even swat a fly if it bit her.  That didn’t save her when--”

Duke chokes up and Kisha wants to reach across and wrap him in a hug.  He looks no older than she is, maybe nineteen or twenty years old.

“I’m sorry,” she says.  And it sounds so utterly inadequate, but there’s nothing else for her to do.

“The Department has torn apart entire families right under your noses because no one  _ cares _ about the victims.  We just want it to stop,” Duke says when he’s finally able to speak again.  “And we want those that are still alive to know that there’s a safe place that they can come to.  That’s it.  That’s what all this is for.”

Kisha bites her bottom lip, her mind whirling as a lump settles in her throat.  Beside her, Royce seems to come to the same conclusion that she has.

“You know, I never really wanted to work at  _ Putnam’s. _  I really wanted to get into politics,” she tells Duke.  “Maybe when we get back... because of what happened… Well, maybe there’s something that we can do to help change the way things are.”

“And I know the Pendergrass family pretty well,” Royce says.  Duke frowns in confusion, “Neal Pendergrass is the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  I don’t know what I could do, but… maybe…” He trails off, swallowing hard.  “I’m in love with his son,” he admits, and Kisha is suddenly tense and ready for a fight.  “I love him and I’m not sure where he is.”

But Duke doesn’t even blink at the mention of a boyfriend, instead offering Royce a tiny smile, “There were no other prisoners on the island.  All the other cell blocks were empty.  If he were there, he’d be on this ship right now.”

All the strength goes out of Royce’s body and he collapses into his arms, relieved beyond belief, “Of course they wouldn’t touch him.  Merlin, I was so fucking scared!”

“We’ll try to find a way to get you in contact with him.  I promise,” Duke says.  He looks up at the clock, “I’m needed on the bridge.  I’ve got to go.”  He rises warily to his feet, “Thanks.  For listening.”

He takes a few steps forward before Kisha launches herself at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.  Duke goes ramrod straight, unsure of how to respond.  She feels him awkwardly pat her back.

Of course, this is the moment when Kisha remembers that she wrote her floo address on the back of a receipt.  She’d been a bit disappointed when he’d never tried to contact her afterward.  It feels like that was a lifetime ago.

_ He’s still pretty cute, _ she thinks as she detangles herself from him, blushing furiously.   _ Especially with that dumbstruck look on his face. _  She always did have a thing for tragic fantasy heroes.

“Um…” Kisha stammers.  “I’ll… see you around?”

“Probably,” Duke says and it gives her a bit of satisfaction to know that he’s as red as she feels right now.  “I’ve got to--” He points in some vague direction behind him.  “I’ve got to go.”

“Yeah.  Bye,” Kisha offers him a smile and Duke nearly stumbles backward into someone passing by as he attempts to leave.

* * *

Seto watches from the docks as the  _ Cerulean _ makes landfall.  Beside him, Mai bounces her daughter on her lap, overjoyed to finally be back with her.

“Joey is coming home!” Mai smiles beautifully and Haley laughs, as radiant as her mother.  “He’s coming home and he’s going to bring back all of our friends! And then we’re going to go get ice cream!  How does that sound, Haley-bear?”

“Can Seto come too?  And Mokuba?” Haley asks, looking at Seto and reaching up to him.  She likes being up high and Seto is the tallest person she can grab onto right now.

“I’ve got to take care of my brother, Haley,” he bends down to look her in the eye.  When Atem had called with the news, that Mokuba was safe, but missing a leg, Seto had had a breakdown right there on the phone.  Mai had been there, guiding him through to the other side and holding him while he wept.  “He’s going to be very tired after everything that he’s been through.  But when he’s feeling up to it, we’ll all go out for ice cream.  I promise.”

_ I need to look for a new place to live, _ the ever-logical side of his brain supplies.   _ And arrange something with the university. _  Thank the gods that the current president had a mage wife.  He’d at least be understanding of their situation, if nothing else.

Haley pouts a little but seems to understand.  Rafael and Alister swoop in, taking her off Mai’s hands as the crew of the  _ Cerulean _ throw down ropes to tie the ship to the dock.

“You know, Joey and Serenity are thinking of moving out of the hotel,” Mai tells him.

Seto frowns, confused at the change of conversation, “I… know?  He mentioned it in passing before the mission began.”  He looks at Mai out of the corner of his eye, “Did he ask you to move in with him?”

Mai nods, “Uh huh.  So he’d be looking for a place with good accessibility for Serenity.”  She tilts her head towards where the blind girl is sitting next to Kuirmet, who’s playing the role of goblin ambassador until Nurnok, Skrags, and the baby are safe to leave the hospital.

Seto swallows around the lump in his throat.  He thinks he sees where Mai is going with this, “It’s a big step for you two.  I wouldn’t want to intrude--”

“Seann,” she says, calling him by the name of his previous cycle, the one where they had last met and finally grew to understand one another.  “Move in with us.”

He struggles to find the right words to say, “I can’t--”

“He loves you, you know,” Mai tells him and Seto’s heart skips a beat.  “I think he always has.  I don’t know what kept you two apart all these cycles, but whatever it is, it’s stupid and you need to stop.”

“You’re his girlfriend,” Seto forces out through clenched teeth.  “And Cassie… Kisara’s here, and I--”

Mai rolls his eyes at him, “Monogamy isn’t always the answer, Seto.”  She sighs, “Look, all I’m saying is that I’m open to it.  If you want to date Joey, I’m alright with it.  And if you and Cassie want to get together too, that’s fine too.  Hell, I’d welcome the extra pair of hands at home, dealing with Haley.  And I know that she’d love it if you’d move in.”

Seto remembers having a similar conversation with Kisara all those cycles ago, remembers how frightened he’d been at the idea of it.  He’s not so scared now.

“We kissed.  Once.  At Lakewood,” he admits.

“I know,” Mai says and he turns to her in shock.  She offers him a cheeky grin, “He told me.”

A slightly hysterical laugh erupts from Seto’s throat before he quickly tamps down on it.  The  _ Cerulean _ is lowering the gangplank onto the dock.

“Move in with us,” Mai asks again.  “Bring Mokuba with you.  We’ll help, all of us.  Together.  As a family.”

Haley runs full tilt at Seto’s legs just then, laughing and screaming as she clings to him, and Seth recalls his first daughter and how she’d smiled up at him just like this.  His heart clenches, remembering how Nurnok had once told him,  _ We all cycle.  Only some are lucky enough to remember _ .

_ Hafash? _  He thinks, staring down at the little girl in wonder.   _ Is it you? _

“Seto!  Seto!” Haley grins, bouncing on her toes.  “I want up!”

“Alright,” he smiles, swooping down to pick her up.  “Look, there.  On the ship.”

Seto points up at the  _ Cerulean _ to where Joey’s head just popped up over the upper deck.   _ Gods, I love him _ .  Joey’s grins and lets out a whoop, disappearing for a second before reappearing with an extremely exhausted looking Mokuba.  Seto’s brother gives him a tiny wave.

_ We’re going to be alright, _ he thinks hopefully as Cassie walks down the gangplank, trailing after her sister, Meron, to greet the customs officer.  Behind the two of them is Duke Devlin, who has dealt with this man several times before when he’s brought everything from weapons to refugee families through the docks.

Joey helps Mokuba down the gangplank, his brother’s arm slung over Joey’s shoulder.  Seto sets Haley down, his legs carrying him forward without him even being conscious of it.

The fabric of Mokuba's pants is tied off just above where his knee should be, but that doesn’t stop him from forcing Joey to move faster, hopping down the gangplank as quickly as he can go.  Seto meets him in the middle, throwing his arms around his brother and burying his face in his shoulder.  They’re both shaking hard, crying with relief.

“Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  He’s not sure which one of them is speaking, but Seto doesn’t care.  His brother is home and safe and in Seto’s arms.  He doesn’t think that he’s ever been this overwhelmed before.

When he finally looks up, Seto sees Joey standing there, his eyes so filled with love.  And for the first time in millennia, Seth doesn’t even think twice.  He reaches out, cupping Jono’s face with his hands, and pulls him into a kiss.  Together they laugh into each other’s mouths, fingers twining into each other’s hair, bodies pressing so close together.  Wolf whistles fill the air around them and Mai’s laughter rings out louder than any other sound, but Seth doesn’t care.

“Thank you,” he whispers again.  “Thank you.”

_ We’re going to be alright, _ he thinks, pressing his lips to Jono’s over and over again.   _ It might take a while, but we’ll get there.  We always do _ .

* * *

Bakura pulls away from what appears to be Atem’s family reunion and slides over to where Cassie is standing next to Meron.

“Can I talk to you two?” The white-haired mage asks.  Cassie glances at her sister, who in turn looks over to where Duke Devlin is talking to the customs operator.  The man is turning a blind eye to all of the people who are coming off of the  _ Cerulean _ .  Meron nods and the three of them disappear behind a large cargo crate.

“Before the island blew, Reiko Kitamori was kind enough to gift us with something interesting,” Bakura says as he pulls out a large stack of files that he passes over to Cassie.  “We also just received  _ this _ from the goblins in London,” and then hands Meron a scroll.

Cassie skims the files, her eyebrows raised at their contents.  Meron unrolls the parchment and frowns at whatever she sees.

“What do you want me to do with this?” Her sister asks.

“The Goblin Queen has requested that we deliver that to a witch named Amane Andrews,” Bakura explains.  “We know that you’re helping out the team of Unspeakables that came with us from the island,” and Meron’s eyes narrow suspiciously since there no way that Bakura should know that.  “But we’re wondering if you’d send them on a slight detour before they head off to wherever they want to go.”

Meron re-rolls the scroll and twirls it in her hand, “Fine.”

“And these?” Cassie asks, holding up the papers that he’d given her.

“Both of your parents work for the French government.  I’m sure you can get those into the hands of the French Minister of Magic, if you really tried,” Bakura says and Cassie’s fingers clench around the files.  She could go home and visit her family, if only for a day.

“Consider it done,” Cassie promises.

“Oh,” Bakura turns back to Meron, his mouth twisting into a sly smirk.  “Can you tell Kitamori that whatever she’s planning on doing, the Ministry and Department are going to be  _ very _ distracted when Minister Palamo delivers her speech to the Confederation.”

Meron looks intrigued but doesn’t ask for details.

As they leave the confines of the crates, Bakura asks Cassie to pass on their thanks to the Jackals.

“And Leo,” he adds, a little hurried.  Cassie chuckles.

“He’s a flirt, isn’t he?” She says, thinking again of the sickly boy in Toronto.  She hopes that Odion is taking good care of him while she’s away.  “He sinks his magic into anyone he gets a hold of.”

Bakura frowns as they come up on his partner, Atem, “Leo’s a mage?”

That causes Atem to turn around and she looks almost as excited as Bakura does to talk about him, “Are we talking about Leo?  Cassie, could you please thank him for all of his support.  We could not have done this without him and the Jackals.”

“Will do, but Bakura’s already got you covered on the thanks,” she says.  Then she answers Bakura’s question, “And yeah, Leo’s a mage.  But I was exaggerating on the about that aspect of his powers.  Leo’s a touch telepath, amongst a few other things.  He’d actually have to be here to do anything.”

She’s not expecting the two of them to freeze, staring at her like they’d seen a ghost.  Bakura’s jaw is gaping wide and Atem brings up a hand to cover her mouth.

“A touch telepath?” Bakura finally forces out.  Cassie frowns, confused.

“Yeah,” she answers.  “And a healer.”

She swallows hard, thinking of the dramatic irony about what it meant to be a mage healer, since Leo could help everyone but himself.

“A healer, too?” Atem gasps, her head snapping towards Bakura.  Smiles split across both of their faces, thousand-watt grins that seem to light up the entire city.

“It’s him!  It’s-- Atem, Leo’s--” Atem cuts Bakura off mid-sentence, pouncing on him and kissing him full on the mouth.  Bakura responds just as passionately, lifting her off the ground and spinning her in the air.

Cassie does not understand what is going on.

“Well, looks like Seto Kaiba isn’t the only one getting laid tonight.  Should have jumped on that sooner, Cassie,” Meron mutters in Cassie’s ear and claps her on the shoulder before turning back to the  _ Cerulean. _  She doesn’t have time to tell her sister that Amanda Green had shacked up with her girlfriend, Tea, in one of the rooms onboard and hadn’t come out until very recently.  Green is still rocking the sex hair.

Cassie turns back and, yep, Bakura and Atem are still going at it.  At least Seto looks appropriately scandalized because the rest of Atem’s family seems to be cracking jokes at his expense.

She misses her brothers more than ever.  So she calls them.

“Cassie?  Cassie!” Stéphane exclaims when he answers the phone.

“ _ Bonjour, mon petit frère, _ ” she smiles.  “Is  _ maman _ home?”

“ _ Non _ .  She’s still at the office,” Stéphane tells her.

“Could you pass on a message for me?” Cassie asks, a smile working its way onto her face.  “Tell her that I’m going home.”


	19. Inverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shawn turns to the boy before they leave, “I’m sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?”
> 
> “Non parlo Inglese,” is the response Shawn gets, complete with a shrug. The boy moves to help the next group of people coming through.
> 
> Reyna frowns, Something is going on here. The boy’s accent sounded far too much like he was from New York for him to be a local kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of kidnapping, magical possession, fantasy classism, inbreeding, severe physical health problems, past minor character death, child murder, starvation, live burial, and unintentional misgendering of a closeted character.

“Minister!  Minister Bruneau!  Wait a moment,  _ s'il vous plaît _ !”

Richard pauses, his hand still on the doorknob to his office, and turns to see his Junoir Undersecretary hurrying to catch up.  She’s holding a stack of parchment so large that it seems to engulf her entire body.

He tries not to sigh.  This is what he’d been afraid of.

“Tat, please tell me that you don’t need me to look over  _ all _ of those,” Richard says, barely holding back how tired he is.

Tatiana gives him a withering look, “I’m sorry, sir.  But they can’t wait until the morning.”

“Rosaline is not going to be happy that you are keeping me in the office so late,” Richard’s voice is teasing, but he knows that his wife will be miserable about the floo call that he now has to send her.  He’d promised her that he’d make it home tonight in time to see their children to bed.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Tatiana apologizes.  “But it’s about the Confederation visit.”

“ _ Merde, _ ” Richard swears, running his hand over his face.  Tomorrow he was travelling to Italy as part of the delegation to discuss the Department of Mysteries.  After the incident in America over a few months ago, combined with the attack by a wizard-born mage on British students, and now with the appearance of an Unplottable island in the Pacific that turned into a volcano, the question of increased transparency by the organization was being asked.

France had stayed out of the chaos until this point, but Richard doesn’t trust the Department of Mysteries as far as he can throw them.  His primary contact with the Unspeakables is a plain-faced man with a gratingly smooth voice whose name seemed to change every time Richard spoke to him.  But the idea that a Minister of Magic could have no clue about what is going on in an area of his Ministry bothers Richard like nothing else.

Richard sighs, “Alright.  Bring them in.”

Tatiana politely smiles as he opens the door for her and walks through.  Once they’re both inside, she pulls her wand on him.

A flash of red renders him unconscious.  When Richard comes to, he’s bound to his office chair with a pair of ties made out of a thin, translucent material that he doesn’t recognize.  Across from him, a beautiful woman is sitting on his sofa dressed in muggle office clothes and shoes with a subtle heel. Her dark hair is streaked with grey and pulled back into a sensible looking updo.

Beside her is a significantly more intimidating man.  He’s nearly seven feet tall and bald, half of his brown face marred by a series of intricate scars.  The man stares, unblinking and unflinching, and Richard swallows hard.

“Richard Bruneau,” the woman says, her full lips red against her pale skin.  “You are the French Minister of Magic.”

“I don’t know who you think you are, but if you believe you can get away with this, you’ve got another thing coming,” Richard snarls.

“I am Nathalie Bleu, French Ambassador to the United Nations,” the woman says.

Richard clenches his fists against the wood of his chair,  _ She’s a muggle _ .

Ignoring that she is utterly shattering the Statute of Secrecy, Richard says, “Mrs. Bleu, if you need to speak we me, I assure you that this,” he pulls at his bindings, “is completely unnecessary.”

The man standing beside Bleu scoffs, and someone  _ behind  _ Richard starts to laugh.  He turns his head and sees Tatiana leaning against one of the walls, Richard’s wand in her hands.

“Tat?” He wheezes.  He doesn’t understand.

“Tat’s not home right now,” Tatiana says, tapping the side of her head with a finger.  Except, it’s not her voice that comes out of her mouth. Instead, a rattling, distinctly male murmur makes its way past her uncharacteristic wide grin.  Tatiana moves like there’s someone else inside her body, twisting her curly blonde hair in between her fingers and shifting from foot to foot. It makes Richard sick to his stomach just watching it.

“What have you done to her?”  Richard shouts, hoping that someone will hear him.

“Ms. Barthet will be returned to normal after we leave.  I’m sorry that we had to use her, but you might not have cooperated otherwise.  But in the meantime, there is something that you need to know,” Bleu tells him.  She stands, her heels clicking gracefully against the hardwood floor as she crosses the room.

Bleu eases into the chair on the opposite side of Richard’s desk and places a large file in front of him.  He recognizes the symbol displayed on the front.

“That’s a Department of Mysteries file.  Where did you get this?” He asks, astounded.   _ I can barely get anything out of the Unspeakables.  How did a muggle get her hands on something so classified? _

“You would have been informed of an Unplottable island that erupted in the Pacific two months ago,” Bleu says, and Richard finds himself nodding.  “That island had been the main headquarters of the Department of Mysteries for nearly a hundred years. Just before it went up in flames, it was raided by the Department’s enemies.  This file was lifted from a senior level Unspeakable.”

“The Department’s enemies?” Richard asks.

“Mages,” Bleu says, as blunt as a flying mallet. 

Before he can ask any more questions, Bleu flips the file open and Richard’s eyes flick across the pages within, his heart thumping against the inside of his chest.

“Is this real?” He whispers, praying for a lie.   _ To think that this is happening only a few floors below my feet...  _

The tall bald man nods, “It is.  We can put you in contact with some Department defectors if you don’t believe us.”

Richard barely even hears him over the blood rushing in his ears.

“They’re kidnapping wizarding children to fill their ranks…” Richard gasps.  “They start wars to… to do this…”

His thinks of his daughters, Marinette and Alya, and how his wife is probably sitting by their fire, watching over them with her warm brown eyes.  If Richard and Rosaline were to die and the Department of Mysteries had their way, his little girls would be taken and turned into soldiers, ready to die for an organization that only saw them as cannon fodder.

He can’t even begin to comprehend the atrocities that he’s been blind to this entire time.

“We have a common enemy,” the bald man says, leaning down over Richard and stares down at him with his horrifically scarred face.  The  _ thing _ inside of Tatiana sits on Richard’s desk, kicking her legs against the wooden drawers and stretching her arms over her head, cracking the bones in her back.  Whatever is controlling her seems to revel in its ability to make her breathe, as Tatiana smiles when her ribcage swells beneath her robes.

Richard shudders, remembering that Bleu had said that mages were responsible for getting the file in the first place.  He tears his gaze away from Tatiana and,  _ Merlin _ , when had mages gotten so powerful that they could infiltrate a wizarding Ministry without anyone knowing?

The bald man continues, regardless of the distraction, “In two days you will be attending the International Confederation of Wizards to hear the American Minister speak.  You leave tomorrow.  Is this true?”

Richard nods.

“When the signal is given, we want you to release this information to the wizarding world and support the move to sever all connection with the Department of Mysteries,” the bald man says.

“What signal?” Richard asks.

“You’ll know,” the thing inside Tatiana smiles, its voice a rasping whisper.  Now that he’s heard the bald man talking, he notices that they carry the same, unfamiliar accent.

“You’re welcome to conduct any raids on the Department between now and then,” Bleu tells him as she rises to her feet, brushing the non-existent dust off of her muggle pants suit.  Nodding at the bald man, she turns away and gathers her purse that she’s left on the sofa across the room.

Richard jumps when the bald man pulls out a knife and approaches him.  He tries to scoot away, but Tatiana grabs hold of the chair and keeps him in place.  The bald man cuts the ties with two flicks of his wrists as Tatiana chuckles at his antics, amused in a way that the actual woman never would be.

“We’ll be speaking again soon,” Bleu promises as Richard’s wand is returned to him.  The bald man joins her at the door. She and the man slip outside as the thing inside Tatiana slides over Richard’s desk and onto the other side.

“Remember, old man.  I’ll be watching,” it taps the side of Tatiana’s nose with a single finger and winks.  Then, Tatiana seems to shake herself, frowning. She looks up with a confused look in her eyes.  “Sir?”

“Tat?” Richard asks, reaching forward to encircle her hands with his own.  “Tat, is that you?”

“Sir, what…?  How did I...?” She looks around the room and then down at the red marks that mar his wrists.  “You’re hurt! What happened?”

Richard swallows, trying to control his fear, “Tat, I need you to do me a favour?”

Tatiana nods, still looking unsure of everything.

“I need you to get me François Boissonade,” he says, naming the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  “Tell him that it’s a Code Red.”

Her eyes widen, her body going tense, “Code Red, sir?”

Richard nods, “Now, Tat.  It’s an emergency.”

She snaps to, rushing out the door to pass on the message.  A Code Red meant only one thing: a declaration of war.

Richard sits down hard in his office chair, rubbing the red marks on his wrists, and gives himself a full three minutes to collect himself.  Then he rises, moving towards the fireplace and sticking his hand in the back of floo powder that he keeps beside the coals.

He has to tell his wife that he’s not coming home tonight.  But if Rosaline knew what he was about to do, then she would understand.

* * *

 

Reyna sits in the back of a black enchanted muggle car, staring out the window at the street beyond.  The driver rolls up to the curb outside the  _ Forum Romanum _ , a series of ruins that had once been the epicentre of the Roman Empire.

“I don’t like this, ma’am,” says Neal Pendergrass.  Reyna glances over at her Head of Magical Law Enforcement, who sits beside her in the car with his son.  “The Department is too powerful an enemy and we have no solid evidence that they’re even behind all of this.  All it will take is one slip up and the Unspeakables with nail us to the floor.”

“We have to take action, Neal,” Reyna tells him but lets her eyes flick over his son, Shawn.  The boy has looked anxious. “If what your son says is correct, then Unspeakables used the chaos that they caused to kidnap suspects from a wand theft case before we could speak to them.  A Ministry employee is still missing,” she says, thinking of Gerry Maller from security who had yet to show up for his shift. “And now with the muggle President breathing down my back about a hijacked airplane and blackouts on the western seaboard, I cannot sit by and do nothing.”

Neal grimaces, “I know, ma’am.  Just…” He sighs, “Please be careful.”

“Come on, Neal.  You know that 'careful' is my middle name,” Reyna jokes, remembering full well how the two of them used to be back in their Auror days.  She sobers quickly, “Well? Shall we?”

Shawn reaches over the seats to tip the driver with a silver Sickle before the three of them clamber out of the car with their protective guard of Aurors.  Reyna watches the boy whenever his father’s back is turned. Shawn has been pale and shaky to the point of distraction in the last few months, but in the last couple of days, he’s seemed strangely calmer.  Today though, Shawn’s every motion appears to be filled with anticipation.

The  _ Forum Romanum _ is a tourist attraction, bustling with muggles holding cameras and children.  Neal’s nose crinkles at the sight of the swarming, wandless masses, expressing his distaste for their kind in the only way that Reyna will allow him to.  Shawn, on the other hand, barely seems to care, leading them to the secretive wizarding entrance, where they are joined by the British delegation.

“Minister Fudge,” Reyna calls out to the portly man in a lime green bowlers hat and long travelling cloak.  The British Minister turns and smiles politely at her.

“Minister Palamo.  How good to see you again, my dear,” Fudge returns her greeting and stretches out a hand for her to shake once his Auror guard is told to stand at ease.  “May I introduce you to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts?”

Reyna had heard of Dumbledore, of course - there was barely a witch or wizard alive who hasn't.  But there was something about actually seeing the man, tall and thin with a crooked nose that hinted at an old break, that made him so much more real.   _ They call him the greatest wizard on earth _ , she thinks and now she can understand why.   _ He’s the Supreme Mugwump, the one that I’ll have to convince if I have any chance of succeeding here _ .

“Reyna Palamo,” she introduces herself.  “American Minister of Magic.”

“It is wonderful to finally meet you in person,” Dumbledore says graciously, his blue eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles.

“And this,” Fudge interrupts, gesturing to the woman on his left, who reminded Reyna of a pale, pink toad, “is my Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Umbridge.”

Umbridge gives Reyna a forced smile.  The hand that she offers is cold and clammy, “Minister Palamo.  So you’re the one kicking up all of the fuss here.”

“I don’t consider it ‘kicking up a fuss’ when my citizens are in danger, Madam Umbridge,” Reyna says firmly and pulls away as quickly as she can, not wanting to touch Umbridge for much longer.  Her heart sinks,  _ If I can’t count on British support, then I’m going to be in a lot of hot water. _

“Now, now, ladies.  Let’s not starting debating out here,” Fudge chuckles, clearly amused in an aggravatingly dismissive way.  “Shall we?”

The boy who mans the entrance is surprisingly young, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old.  He’s heavily muscled in a way that most Italian wizards are not, a mop of dirty blond hair atop his head.  He doesn’t speak English but he’s surprisingly friendly none the less, wildly grinning as he checks their wands and provides them with their passes, waving them through the gates.

Shawn turns to the boy before they leave, “I’m sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?”

“ _ Non parlo Inglese, _ ” is the response Shawn gets, complete with a shrug.  The boy moves to help the next group of people coming through.

Reyna frowns,  _ Something is going on here. _  The boy’s accent sounded far too much like he was from New York for him to be a local kid.

Just beyond the gate was a shimmering sheet of magic hanging in the air, the world beyond distorted as if they were underwater.  Passing through the centuries-old illusion felt like walking through a dense mist. Reyna opens her eyes and sees the  _ Forum Romanum  _ in its full glory.

Nearly four hundred years ago, when the Statute of Secrecy was in its early drafts, the first witches and wizards of the Confederation pulled the true  _ Forum Romanum _ one second out of time and restored it to its former glory.  Instead of the ruins that the muggle travelled through each day, the plaza was filled with pillared buildings of shining white marble wrapped in green ivy.  Beautiful cobblestone streets were lined with trees and gleaming statues as a massive fountain took up the centre of the courtyard.

Witches and wizards from all over the world walked the streets openly under the afternoon sun, darting around in a myriad of brightly coloured robes and golden bangles.  The temples used to be home to nearly fifty pureblood clans that could trace their lineage back to the beginnings of the Roman Empire. But now many had been converted into shops and apartments for lease, as Italy’s fascination with wizarding supremacy had dwindled those families down to four.

Reyna attention is drawn to her left where she sees a girl no younger than thirteen dressed in a long woollen gown as pale as her skin, a white ribbon threaded through the six braids in her hair.  She is seated inside of a litter, held afloat by four house elves that flanked each corner, and is attended by nearly two dozen Italian Aurors in the traditional bronze armour of the ancient Roman centurions.  

_ Nearly a century of marrying brother to sister and this is the result, _ Reyna thinks as she notes the shaking in the girl’s hands and the way her eyes seem to point in different directions.  Reyna believes the reason why the girl is sitting is that she can no longer stand.

As a single centurion detaches from the rest of his group, coming forward to address them, Dumbledore whispers, “Do not look at the girl and only speak the man.”  Then the man raises his voice and declares, “I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. I am accompanied by the delegations of Great Britain and the United States of America, along with their associated Ministers for Magic.”

The centurion stands at attention and seems to translate for the girl in the litter.  She nods and responds in what Reyna can only assume to be Latin, the native language of the  _ Forum _ .

“I am Tiberius Oceanus,” the centurion responds when the girl finally stops speaking, his words carrying a heavy Italian accent.  “Speaker to the Unclean for the Honourable Vestal Luccenia,  _ Vestalis Maxima _ and wife of Rome.  If you come with us, Supreme Mugwump, we will escort you and your companions to stay at the  _ Tempio di Vesta _ , where you may stay until the Confederation meets tomorrow.”

“‘The _u_ _nclean_?’  What’s that supposed to mean?” Shawn Pendergrass hisses and his father steps on his foot to keep him quiet.

“We are honoured by the Vestal’s presence,” Dumbledore answers, ignoring Shawn’s outburst.  “Please, lead the way.”

“Are you  _ stupid _ ?” Neal whispers angrily at his son as the delegation begins to move.  “What did Dumbledore just say?”

“He called us  _ unclean _ , dad!  How else was I supposed to respond to something like that?”

“Things are different here,” Reyna explains, trying to defuse the situation a little bit but nonetheless agreeing with him.

“Things are  _ wrong _ here,” Shawn frowns.  Reyna has never seen him so outspoken before.  “Who the hell is that girl anyway?”

It is Dumbledore who answers his question, “She’s the leader of the Vestal Virgins.  In ancient times, they worshipped the goddess Vesta and tended to the Eternal Flame that existed beneath the city.  Now they’re more figureheads, but they still possess incredible power in the Italian Ministry. However…” he frowns and then addresses the centurion again, “If you will excuse me, Tiberius, but the last time I visited the city, Vestal Atronia was the  _ Vestalis Maxima _ .  May I ask what happened to her?”

“Atronia was stripped of her titles following the discovery of her treason,” Tiberius answers.  “She was punished in accordance with our laws.”

Dumbledore frowns, “What was she arrested for?”

“Aiding and abetting the criminal Cassiopeia Zabini,” Tiberius answers.

“Vestal Atronia was fifteen years old,” Dumbledore says.

“Atronia was a traitor and was punished as such,” Tiberius responds and says nothing else.

“What does that mean?” Reyna asks Dumbledore once she’s sure that the centurion is no longer listening.

“No one is allowed to physically harm a Vestal, so they must have locked that poor girl in a tomb and let her starve to death,” Dumbledore murmurs to her under his breath, barely able to keep the disgust from his voice.

“This is so  _ wrong _ ,” Shawn says, his fist clenched at his sides.  Reyna might have imagined it, but she thinks that she sees Luccenia turn in her litter to look at Shawn, a small grin playing on her lips.

When they reach the  _ Tempio di Vesta _ , a stunning marble palace with three stories and over a hundred rooms, Luccenia’s litter is set down on the ground.  The four house elves crowd around her, helping her to her feet and assisting her in her walk up the stairs. Reyna tries her best to ignore how Fudge and Umbridge seem to stare at the young girl with hungry eyes.  She thinks,  _ The Brits and their fascination with wizarding supremacy will be the end of us all. _

“This way,” Tiberius calls as he separates from the Vestals’ guard to lead them to their rooms.

Reyna’s balcony overlooks a grove of beautiful trees and flowers, the green grass shimmering as the wind passed through it.  A wizard-made river passes through the garden, where Reyna watches Luccenia kneeling before a giant bonfire, their wands aloft over their heads and casting their spells to keep it alight, dressed in identical white dresses and shawls.  Dumbledore had told them that this was not actually the Eternal Flame, only an imitation of the one said to exist under the  _ Forum _ .

Luccenia leads the four other girls; none of them are older than Luccenia, the youngest of which looked no older than six.  They had been carried in by their house elves, as they didn’t appear to be able to walk without help. One of the girls had seven webbed fingers on one hand and four on the other, while another didn’t seem to be able to close her jaw.  All around the grove stood their guard of red-clad centurions who watched over the girls with blank, dead eyes.

A knock comes from the other side of her door.  Reyna frowns,  _ I’m not expecting anyone until dinner. _

“Come in,” she calls.

A man enters and she recognizes him as the French Minister for Magic, Richard Bruneau.  He closes the door, pointing his wand at the knob and locks it.

“Minister Bruneau, what--” Reyna begins to ask, but he cuts her off.

“I haven’t got much time,” he says, his voice betraying his urgency.  “Last night, my government performed a raid on our section of the Department of Mysteries.”

“You did what?!” Reyna exclaims, “Minister, that’s practically a declaration of war!”

“I know,” he stressed.  “But what we found down there… Minister Palamo, you need to conduct a raid of your own.” When she opens her mouth to argue the legality of it, Bruneau interrupts her again, “ _ Fuck _ the law, ma’am.  If you saw what I saw last night, you’d be saying the same thing.  And I know that after everything that they’ve done, you’re seething for the opportunity.”

“What did you find?” She asks.

“I can’t tell you.  I’m under watch,” Bruneau tells her.  When she asks if it’s Unspeakables, he shakes his head.  “No. I don’t think so…” He looks towards the locked door and then turns back to her, “We have a common ally against the Department, Minister.  And whatever happens tomorrow, despite everything we’ve been told I think we can trust them.”

Bruneau pulls out his wand and unlocks the door.  Just before he leaves, Reyna asks again, “What did you find, Minister?”

He hesitates, audibly swallowing.  Bruneau gives her an utterly desperate look and says, “Have you ever wondered why there are no wizarding orphanages, despite all the blood supremacy wars we seem to have?  Because the answer is the same as why there’s no recruitment process to get into the Department of Mysteries.”

He leaves her with that, exiting just as quickly as he came as he came it.  The gears in Reyna’s head turn at incredible speeds before finally coming to a conclusion that she prays is not true.  She takes one last glance at the Vestals in the grove before she goes to find Neal and gives him the order to return home.

When she tells him why, he doesn’t argue.

* * *

 

The house elves lower Luccenia into the wheelchair that she uses to traverse her personal quarters just as Tiberius enters her room.

“Leave us,” she dismisses them and the elves disappear in a puff of smoke.  Luccenia turns to Tiberius. “Is it done?”

Her centurion drops to one knee and bows his head, “It is.”

“No one suspects anything?” She confirms.

“The Pendergrass boy from the American delegation almost recognized the mage at the front gate, but you said that we were not to touch him,” Tiberius tells her.  “If it becomes an issue--”

“I’ve been told by our ally that Shawn Pendergrass already knows some details surrounding the mages operation.  He may have just been identifying himself to Wheeler. Besides, we only have to hold out for one day,” Luccenia reassures him.  “As long as Minister Sidonia stays in the dark, then we should be alright.”

“Of course, my lady,” Tiberius answers.  She dismisses him as well and waits.

A golden glow illuminates her room and a man seems to step out of a crevice in the middle.  He’s younger than Tiberius, with short black hair, bright purple eyes, and a blue neckerchief around his neck.  

Luccenia smiles, “Em.”

The bright light disappears from around him and Em puts his hands on his waist, sighing as he looks over Luccenia.

“You told me that you’d say something if your liver started acting erratically again,” he complains, producing a vile of something bright green out of nowhere.  He offers it to Luccenia, but she can’t hold it, her hands shaking so badly that it drops to the floor. The vile shatters, staining the rub beneath her with its contents.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.  Her eyes burn with embarrassing tears.

Em kneels before her and gently tilts Luccenia head up so that she looks at him.

“Hey, none of that,” he smiles kindly.  “Come on. It’s nothing I can’t fix.  _ Reparo. _ ”

Luccenia watches as Em’s eyes glow golden and he waves his hand over the mess.  The vile reassembles itself as the potion flows upwards from the carpet and back inside.

“There.  Good as new,” Em grins and he helps her to swallow it down.  “Better?”

Luccenia nods as the uncomfortable pain in her gut disappears.

“Thank you for helping them today,” Em says as he stands.

“I don’t understand why you’re helping them, though,” Luccenia asks.  “They’re mages. They’re not  _ your _ people.”

“That kind of thinking is what got us into this mess in the first place,” Em says.  “And who says they’re not. Back in my day, when everyone else was focused on fighting each other, I was the only one who stepped back and said, ‘No.  We need to evacuate. We need to help everyone.’ I saved wizards and mages and non-magics alike that day. Doesn’t that make them all my people?”

Luccenia tilts her head to the side, “You’re not what I expected.”

“Sorry to disappoint you then,” Em snorts.  “Look, I got to go. I told my boss that I’d be right back--”

She interrupts him.

“Why are you really here?” She asks, “The Eternal Flame is the grove is a lie - the Rip that Cadmus Peverell carved beneath the  _ Forum _ closed centuries ago when Rome fell.  The same as the one in Egypt. There’s no passage left for you to take back.”

The man shakes his head, “There is one Rip left.  But only the Daughter of Albion can open it. And she still has to find me - to  _ learn _ who I am.  Call it a quest, if you will.  ‘The Daughter of Albion and the Queen Consort To Be must find the find the God Beyond The Rip to discover the truth and restore balance to the world.’”  He shrugs, “Prophecies are more always trouble than they’re worth.”

The warm light envelops him once more and Luccenia is left alone, staring out at the evening sky.

Em had been a frequent visitor of her predecessor, Atronia, keeping the former  _ Vestalis Maxima  _ supplied with enough potions to ensure that Luccenia and her sisters would live as long as they could in as little pain as possible.  He could not stop death, Em had told them, but he could prolong it.

Atronia knew that Em been based somewhere in England.  So when Cassiopeia had come to the _T_ _ empio di Vesta _ looking for sanctuary for her granddaughter and great-grandchild, Atronia had given Cassiopeia Em’s contact information and sent them his way, knowing that he would take care of them as he did with the rest of the Vestals.

But after Minister Sidonia found out, Atronia was arrested.  Luccenia never saw her again. Em said that he made sure that she didn’t suffer.

So when Em had come to her about a week ago, telling her that he needed to help to smuggle a group of mages into the city without letting them know who was assisting them, Luccenia called upon her guard, Tiberius, to help.

The boy at the front gate was just the first of many.  Supposedly, he’d been positioned there alongside a mage who could become invisible to the naked eye and see the names of everyone that he passed.  Somewhere in one of the abandoned temples, home to the extinct Vulso clan, the remaining mages had found a fully stocked kitchen, detailed maps of the city, an itinerary of tomorrow’s events, and enough beds for a small army.  The closets had been filled with clothing to disguise them in case they needed to go out into the city

It was treason, but Luccenia didn’t care.  She had no loyalty to the Ministry, nor did she have any for the family she left behind to take on the position she currently holds.  Luccenia was a bride of Rome, like every Vestal that had come before her. She was loyal to her city, to her people, and to the wizarding world at large.

And who was she to question the god of that world when he came calling.

* * *

 

Amane is awoken in the middle of the night by a tapping noise.

“Wha’zat?” Blaise mumbles from the other side of the room, ungracefully rising from his slumber and glaring bleary-eyed at the window.  The two of them had been forced to share ever since Viola had insisted on Natsuki taking the guest room. The door had to remain open at all times, they had to change in the loo, and neither of them liked it at all.

“Go find out,” Amane growls, squishing her face into her pillow and pulling the blanket over her head.  She just wants to go back to sleep.

Amane hears Blaise’s bare feet pad across the floor toward the window.  She feels the cold night air wash over her when he opens it and then bolts upright when she hears a hoot.

Whipping her head around, she sees Blaise standing there with a standard brown post owl latched to his arm.  Attached to its leg is a long scroll of parchment.

“There’s a letter,” Blaise says awkwardly, holding up the envelope.  “It’s addressed to you.”

She’s across the room in an instant, tugging the letter from Blaise’s grasp and ripping it open.  Amane’s heart stops beating when she sees that the message inside is written in code.

_ Ryou’s code. _

Amane rushes to the kitchen table, scrambling for a piece of parchment and quill to write the translation down, remembering only at the last minute that she would need a muggle dictionary to translate.  When she tells Blaise this, he wanders over to one of the bookshelves to pull one from the stacks.

The numbers on the page match up with the letters in the book.  Amane writes so fast that she splatters her clothes with ink, barely comprehending the message until its fully translated.  When she’s finally done, she leans back and reads:

Amane,

I know you don’t want to talk to me but hear me out.

A goblin named Nurnok wanted you to have this before she died.  I don’t know what it is and I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it, but the people who gave it to me are really insistent that you have it.

Also, if you get the chance, try to catch the Confederation radio broadcast tomorrow.  Apparently, something is supposed to go down during the speeches.

Keith

“What?” She gasps.   _ Nurnok is dead?  How? And how in Merlin’s name does Keith fucking Howard even know about that? _

“Amane…” Blaise draws her attention away from Keith’s letter.  He’s staring at the open roll of parchment with a look of intent curiosity on his face.

“What is it?” Amane asks.  He flips it around so that she can see.

“It looks like a map,” Blaise says.  “But… you remember what you said that that goblin lady told you?  About something called a Rip?”

She nods.  Blaise’s finger points to something on the page.  Amane leans in closer to see a jagged symbol marked on the very bottom of the page.

“‘The Rip,’” she reads.  It’s the only words written in English.  She glances up at Blaise. “What goes it mean?”

“I don’t know…” Blaise frowns.  He flattens the map out on the kitchen table and points to the edges of the parchment.  “Look at the edges.”

He runs his fingers down the sides of the page, over something that Amane had first dismissed as a twisting, decorative border.  Except now that she’s focusing on them, she sees that it’s actually four distinct snakes, each eating the other’s tail.

“Each one is a different colour,” Blaise says out.  “Red and gold in the top left. Green and silver to its right,” he slides his finger along the green snake and down the parchment, “Then there’s blue and bronze in the bottom right and yellow and black in the bottom left.”  He pauses, looking at Amane. “It’s the symbol of Hogwarts.”

“Except it's all snakes, which is the Slytherin symbol,” she points out.  “Apparently, during the first war against You-Know-Who, some people on his side were tossing around the idea of a united Hogwarts under Slytherin House.”  Her father had mentioned it once after Ryou had been sorted. “Maybe it has something to do with that?”

“I don’t think so,” Blaise shakes his head.

“Why?”

“If you wanted a single house, why represent the other three?” He asks and Amane has to admit that he has a point.  Blaise licks his lips, “I don’t think we should tell anyone about this.”

Amane agrees.  Together, they roll the map up and stuff it in one of the bags that she’d brought from her old house.

The two of them try to go back to sleep, but they can’t, still too wired from their midnight delivery.  Amane tries not to think about Keith's letter, about the postscript that she'd left untranslated the moment she realized that Keith had been trying to tell her something about Ryou.  About an hour later, Amane hears Blaise whisper her name in the dark.

“What?”  She asks, equally as quiet.

“You’re… going to come to Hogwarts, right?”

She hasn’t wanted to think about it, not with the semester just around the corner.  Amane had been considering begging her mother to take her to Japan to avoid it all.  But now that she’s received the map, she’s reconsidering.

“Yeah,” she answers.  “I think I am.”

“Oh,” she hears Blaise shift on the sofa, turning towards her.  Amane glances over and catches him staring at her. He offers her a rare smile, his face illuminated by moonlight.  “Good.”


	20. Take Up The Hatchet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world was about to change. Royce Land could do nothing but watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of genocide, rape, non-consensual body modification, suicide, pedophilia, impregnation, theft, kidnapping, starvation, past character death, child abuse, extreme physical health problems, and violence.

Thousands of years ago, the Curia Julia housed the ancient Senate of Rome.  Built out of red brick and white marble, the original building could hold roughly three hundred men sitting on three tiers of seats five rows deep, who argued over the laws that covered the Empire of Old.  The floor was covered in beautiful tiles, inlaid with stylized roses that intertwined with one another, and the windows covered in stunning stained glass.

After the  _ Forum _  had been pulled under wizarding control nearly four centuries ago, the  _ Curia  _ had been restored to its former glory, along with a few alterations.  The interior of the building had been magically enlarged, now able to hold nearly one hundred and ninety-five delegations from countries all around the world.  The old rose covered floor had been replaced with a continually shifting map of the world, which could be enchanted to focus on any particular spot should the need arise.  The stained glass windows remained but instead of depicting the legends of Rome’s past, they showed great moments in wizarding history: the sacrifice of the legendary Three Kings, the building of Hogwarts castle, and enactment of the Statute of Secrecy, just to name a few.

Luccenia allows her gaze to pass over them as her litter carries her across the  _ Curia _  toward the main dais.  As  _ Vestalis Maxima _ , she leads the procession, while the other Vestals travel behind her.  Luccenia watches as the various delegations talk to one another in a thousand languages and dialects, none of which she has been allowed to learn but had any way out of spite.  She clenches her shaking fists.

Not for the first time, Luccenia hates the fact that she was given to the Order.  Her mother had given her up at the age of nine, happy to decide her path before she was even able to comprehend what being a Vestal meant.  In the ancient days, women who were inducted into the priesthood would be allowed to leave after thirty years of service. But nowadays, Vestals served for life, swearing celibacy after being ceremonially married to the city.

Luccenia thinks of Atronia, her sister by servitude and her cousin by blood.  Atronia had been a radical, speaking out against the Pureblood Protection Act in public and kissing girls in private, all while teaching her fellow Vestals ways to undermine the system.  Everything that Luccenia wants to accomplish comes back to Atronia, but she had to be careful.

Luccenia glances up at the dais, where the Italian Minister of Magic was already seated.  Minister Titus Sidonia stares out at the masses below, his lips curling in disgust. Luccenia  _ hates  _ him.

_ You killed Atronia.  You ruined my life, _  she thinks.   _ I’m going to take you down, even if I have to ally myself with mages to do it. _

The house elves set Luccenia’s litter down once they reach the top, helping her to her feet and giving her the support that she needs to walk to her chair.  Tiberius takes his place just behind her, an ever-present shadow. She notes how his eyes wander to the other Vestals taking their seats, letting his gaze fall upon Grata, their youngest inductee.  Grata was Tiberius's blood sister, given to the Order a year ago once it became clear no other pureblood family had spare daughters to sacrifice to the order.

Titus barely gives Luccenia a second glance.  She grits her teeth and forces her gaze forward.  She has bigger things to worry about.

She spots the first mage almost immediately.  The stunning blonde woman stands by the door, waiting on various delegations and answering the questions that they might have.  The next mage is a little harder to spot. Lurking in the shadows of one of the tall pillars, a Japanese boy stands guard in stolen centurion armour, his eyes flicking around at the proceedings.

The more Luccenia looks, the more mages she spots.  A girl speaking fluent Mandarin leans over Minister Xiang Li’s shoulder while a muscular blond teenager sits in the place of the Confederation’s stenographer.  She counts ten, twenty, and then looks again and finds fifteen more. Luccenia stops counting when she hits fifty-two, her heart pounding in her throat.

Whatever happens today, the wizarding world will hear about it.  All around the room were recording spells which would broadcast Minister Palamo’s speech across the entire world.  And if the mages were here, then there was little that anyone could do to stop their message from being heard.

Tiberius leans down next to her, whispering in her ear, “My lady.  It appears we have a guest.”

“Not just one,” Luccenia answers, thinking that he had spotted one of the mages down below.

“Not them, my lady.  One that wants to speak with you.”  Luccenia’s throat goes dry as Tiberius continues on, “He can’t speak Latin, so he’s asking me to translate.”

Luccenia risks a glance back at Tiberius, but can’t see anyone, “Where…?”

She hears  _ something _  speak next to her.  It’s English so she can understand it though she pretends not to, letting Tiberius say, “He thanks us for our assistance in getting his comrades into the city.”

Luccenia swallows hard, “How did he know that it was us?”

As Tiberius translates, she wonders,  _ If there’s a leak, they'll bury me like Atronia. _

“Apparently I’m not as subtle as I think I am,” Tiberius tells her, then pauses before he adds, “The mage says that no one aside from them knows.  He promises to keep it that way.”

Luccenia takes as deep a breath as her lungs will allow her, “Tell our guest that he welcome, though I expect him and his companions to be out of the city as soon as possible.”

Tiberius and the invisible mage trade words before the centurion answers, “He swears.”  There’s an even longer break and then Tiberius says, “I think he’s gone, my lady.”

Luccenia gives him a jerky nod, reaching for her wand to comfort herself.  Her stomach drops when she realizes that it’s not there.

“Tiberius…” she hisses.

“He took mine too,” Tiberius whispers.  “My lady--”

“Do nothing.  Say nothing,” Luccenia orders him.  “It will only implicate us.”

Tiberius nods, shifting closer to Luccenia than he usually is allowed to stand.  She knows that if worse came to worse, the centurion would sacrifice his life to save her, but he keeps glancing over at Grata.  She can’t blame him for worrying.

“Go to her,” Luccenia tells him.

Tiberius hesitates, “My lady--”

“I will be safe.  I promise,” she says.  “Now go.”

She hears the shaking in his voice when he whispers, ‘Thank you,” and listens to his footsteps as he heads toward his sister.

_ Em, please watch over us, _  Luccenia prays, hoping that her words will reach the god in England.   _ Keep us from harm _ .

* * *

 Royce can’t believe what he’s seeing: nearly a hundred mages and mage supporters marching through the foyer of the International Confederation of Wizards, completely uncontested.  Atem, the steely-eyed co-leader of the mages, leads the charge, hand in hand with a slight blind girl with long auburn hair. Someone had explained that the girl, Serenity, could hypnotize people that she came in contact with, but Atem was amplifying her powers so that she could use them on entire crowds.  

They all seemed so utterly unstoppable, but never once in Royce’s two-month stay in San Francisco had he ever felt threatened by one of them.  It still throws him for a loop sometimes, that everything that he’s been told about mages since he became part of the wizarding world was a lie.

Royce remembers the first time that he’d seen two men holding hands at one of their gatherings, how the only reactions they’d gotten were congratulations and well wishes for their new relationship.  He thinks of the time that he’d brought Shawn home to meet his family and how they’d welcomed his boyfriend with open arms. Shawn had commented that he wishes his own family would be accepting but knew they never would be.

Royce’s mother had smiled sadly and said, “You have a place here.   _ Alway _ s.”

_ Sometimes muggles  _ _do_ _  it better, _  he thinks, grinning.  The exhilaration of the crowd is intoxicating.

Beside him, Kisha listens to Delphia rattling off facts about the different buildings that they passed, stating the name and its historical significance to the ancient Roman Empire.  Occasionally, Matthew Jacques, their primary caregiver in the last two months, would pipe in with an observation or two, but seemed mostly content to just listen to Delphia speak.

Royce feels a special sort of connection to the man.  Matthew had worked his ass off to hack into the American floo network to get Royce a connection to Shawn while he stayed in San Francisco, debating magical theory back and forth with his half-sisters Amanda and Atem at breakneck speeds.  But in the end, they’d managed to piece together something that bypassed Shawn’s fireplace entirely and got Royce to appear in his boyfriend’s bedroom mirror.

Their conversation had been watched and recorded by the mage’s non-magical technology, but it had hardly mattered.  Royce and Shawn had spent half of their conversation crying, scratching at the surface of the mirror in an attempt to get at each other.  But once they’d calmed down, Royce had kept his word and not given away where he was or what was happening - only promising that he would be returned to the wizarding world amidst Minister Palamo’s speech to the Confederation.

Shawn’s eyes took on such a resemblance to his father’s when he asked, “The people that are keeping you, are they listening?”

Royce glanced at Matthew and his friend, Joey Wheeler, the mage who could turn into a giant black dragon.  Wheeler gave Royce a nod.

“Yeah,” he confirmed.  “But they saved me from the real bad guys, Shawn.  They’d not--”

“I want to speak with one of them.  Now.”

Royce looked helplessly toward the two mages, who exchanged silent communication until Wheeler spoke out, refusing to show his face but ready to negotiate.

By the end of it all, Shawn had committed blatant treason against the wizarding world, handing over copies of Minister Palamo’s itinerary and explained how to enter the  _ Forum Romanum _ .  In exchange, Shawn had gotten Wheeler to promise sanctuary in San Francisco for his sister, Chelsea, a wizard-born mage who’d gone through the conversion program and had come out terrified of her own shadow.

It had all come to this.  Royce tries to regulate his breathing as he glances up at the tall ceiling, the murals that had been painted high above them shifting so that they could tell their stories.  In the center of it all were the legendary Three Kings, the first wizards who’d carved their wands out of acacia trees and used them in their decades-long reign over Egypt. Royce remembers the muggle tale more than the wizarding one; his mother had read it to him every night before bed until the spine of the book cracked and they’d had to buy a new one.

He curls his fingers into his fists, thinking of the legendary King Commander and the strength that he’d always seemed to wield, even in the most impossible situations.  Royce tries his best to embody his hero as he walks in time with the San Francisco mages.

When the mages reach the main doors, the pair of guards dressed in ancient centurion armour are quickly dispatched of.  Atem gives the order and Seto Kaiba and his non-magic brother, Mokuba move, knocking them out with a series of quick jabs and kicks.  Royce is amazed that Mokuba can move as well as he does with his fake leg, considering that it looks nothing like an actual foot. The springy microfiber hook works with him, letting him move how he wants.

When asked about it, Mokuba had responded with a dark look in his eye, “Not the first time I’ve lost a leg.”

Royce has no idea what to think about that, considering that he’s pretty sure Mokuba still owned three out of his four limbs.

When Atem reaches the door, she taps at the hinges with her fingers, seemingly searching for something.  Royce doesn’t know what she can do, but within seconds she’s telling the group that they’re good to go.

“We wait for Bakura to give us the signal,” she says, lightning twitching around her fingertips.  Royce misses his wand. “This is it. Get ready.”

The world was about to change.  Royce Land could do nothing but watch.

* * *

 Reyna watches as Dumbledore taps the podium, drawing the attention of all of the delegations around the room.

“Thank you all for coming today,” Dumbledore says, a polite smile edging its way onto his lips.  “This emergency session of the International Confederation of Wizards has been called to discuss the Department of Mysteries and the recent upheavals that have been connected to it.  Representing the Department is Unspeakable Trista Latner,” he nods to the young woman standing in the center of the floor, her dark hair worn in a simple braid, her dark eyes flashing with annoyance.  “The charges against the Department have been leveled by the American Minister of Magic, Reyna Palamo. Please keep all your questions for the debate afterward. Thank you.”

Dumbledore gestures for Reyna to take the podium.  She rises and walks forward, nerves bubbling in her stomach.  She wonders, not for the first time, if she was making a mistake.  No country in the history of the Confederation had dared to stand up to the Department of Mysteries.  There had been rumours that the few individuals who had spoken against them had disappeared into the depths of the organization, never to be seen again.

She takes a deep breath, calming herself.   _ It has to be me _ , Reyna thinks, her eyes flicking to Neal Pendergrass, who had returned from America with the results of his raid only an hour ago.   _ Someone has to get the ball rolling.  And I’m in too public a position for them to do away with me without suspicion. _

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Confederation,” Reyna starts as one of the centurions slides into position behind her, supposedly to guard her against some unforeseen danger.  “Nearly months ago, the United States fell under attack from within. The entirety of the Ministry of Magic was transformed into a desert while fiendfyre was unleashed upon the witches and wizards working inside.  Nearly half of my Auror Department had to be immediately evacuated to Buchanan Hospital to be treated for their injuries and  _ dragon _  paw prints were left outside the building in full view of the muggle population of Philadelphia.  All evidence points to the Department of Mysteries--”

“Circumstantial evidence,” Latner interrupts, a cocky grin on her face.  “There is nothing to prove that the Department actually had anything to do with--”

“The door to your Department had been busted off its hinges and the Aurors outside where trapped within a ring of fiendfyre.  Our investigation later showed that the desert transformation originated within five feet of your open door--”

“ _ Circumstantial _ ,” Latner repeats again.  “No offense, Minister Palamo, but unless you have something that can solidly connect the unfortunate accident that occurred at your Ministry to the Department of Mysteries, then you are wasting the time of everyone here.”

“What of the kidnapped magical Americans, then?”  Reyna asks. Latner blinks.

“I’m sorry.  Pardon me?”

“Morgan Sammons, Delphia Caro, Ellen Messer, and Royce Land,” Reyna says, omitting Gerry Maler and Kisha Borrego, who Neal has given her no solid evidence that Unspeakables were responsive for their disappearances, but still labeled them as ‘incredibly fishy’.  “We have an eyewitness account that places Unspeakables at the Ministry, taking them from our custody against their wills.”

Latner’s smile seems a little less sure when she answers, “Eyewitness testimony is often unreliable.  So unless you can prove--”

“I can,” Shawn Pendergrass stands, his determination evident on his face.  In his hands, he holds a vile of silvery hair-like wisps. “You will have to excuse the mild corruption of the memory, of course.  It was only discovered after my father realizes that I had been subjected to a memory charm in an attempt to cover it up.”

A murmur goes around the room as the Confederation reacts to Shawn’s confession.  Reyna takes a bit of satisfaction in how Latner’s lips seem to thin into nothingness.

“Supreme Mugwump, will you allow Mr. Pendergrass’s memory to be viewed by the Confederation,” Reyna asks.

Dumbledore tuts over it for one of the most stressful minutes of her life before answering, “Let us see it, then.”

He swishes his wand through the air and the map on the floor blurs out of existence, replaced by the swirling white mist of the Confederation’s pensieve.  Shawn pours his memory onto the floor and the delegations shift to get a better view as his recollection of the events play out for all to see.

Reyna has seen it before, but is still chilled by how the Unspeakables rush into her auror office and stun the five witches and wizards inside before the leader, a man with slicked back dark hair turns his wand on Shawn, wordlessly obliviating him to remove all trace of them being there.  Shocked gasps ring out around the Confederation and Reyna can actually hear her centurion guard whisper, “ _ Fuck _ .”

The Unspeakable licks her lips and says in a way that is utterly unconvincing, “I was not informed of this.”

“Well, then you’re lucky that I  _ was _ ,” Reyna growls back at her as the floor morphs back into the world map.  She places Neal’s findings in front of her, “This evidence gave me enough of a reason to do something that no other Ministry has done before.  Going against all of our regulations, I ordered an auror raid on the American division of the Department of Mysteries--”

_ Noise. _   The Confederation seems to stand as one, shouting in a hundred languages in outrage.  Some of Latner’s previous attitude reappears on her face.

“Silence!” Dumbledore shouts over the commotion, attempting to bring order to the room.  One by one, the delegations sit back down with sour looks on her face. “You are aware of the illegality of your actions, Minister Palamo?”

“I am aware that the Department of Mysteries threw the first stone, Supreme Mugwump, when they kidnapped my citizens from inside my own Ministry,” Reyna throws back.  “I deny none of the laws that I have broken, but what I hoped to find - what I did find, was far worse.”

She motions for Neal, who calls upon one of nearby house elves.  He gives the elf his findings, orders him to make copies, and has him pass it out to the other members.

“As we all know, the Department of Mysteries has a division in nearly every one of our Ministries, operating with complete authority and without boundaries,” Reyna says, allowing some of the disgust that she feels to make its way into her voice.  “As a result, we discovered that the Unspeakables have been using their space beneath my Ministry as a storage vault.”

“Which is not illegal, unlike what you have done,” Latner points out.

“It  _ is _  illegal when you possess weapons of mass destruction,” Reyna says.  Another rumble of voices echoes around the room, but she powers through, flipping through Neal’s report, “From what little we have learned, your Archives has enough magical firepower to level an entire city.  How exactly am I going to explain to the muggle President what happened when something of yours goes off and vaporizes Philadelphia?”

Latner grits her teeth, “We have precautions but in place--”

“Which didn’t stop a dragon from escaping and terrorizing my citizens!” Reyna shouts, “Instead, you tried to cover it up by obliviating my entire Ministry and then kidnapping five people from under our noses!  Where are they, Trista Latner? Were they on your Unplottable island in the middle of the Pacific? Because if they were, I will charge you with murder as well.”

Latner says nothing, so Dumbledore turns to Reyna and asks, “It says in your report that your kidnapped citizens were at the Ministry to report a mass wand theft in William’s Abbey.”

Reyna, feeling a little derailed at the change in topic, answers, “Yes.”

“So what is the connection?”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“The connection, Minister,” Dumbledore implores.  “Clearly, these five were a threat to the Department, for Unspeakables to go out of their way to kidnap them.  So why them?”

Reyna turns to Latner, “That’s a good question.  Care to answer that one as well?”

Latner licks her lips again, “I have not been informed--”

“Answer the question,” Reyna repeats, raising her voice.

“Oh, she knows.  She just can’t tell the entire story,” says the centurion behind Reyna.  She whips around just in time to see him take off his helmet, revealing that he was decidedly  _ not _  Italian.  Reyna reaches for her wand, only to find that  _ that it’s not there _ .  The centurion gives her a cocky smile and then addresses the room, “Now!”

* * *

Bakura watches with pride as Atem blows the magically sealed door clean off their hinges, sending the massive wooden broads crashing to the floor.  She walks through the open arch, surrounded by a small army of mages and non-magics. Her family are just a step behind her, just as intimidating. He bites back a grin and moves out from under his powers of invisibility.

All around the room, the mages and supporters that they’d snuck into the _  Curio Julia _  reveal themselves, following Duke’s example.  They jump over banisters, joining the approaching crowd.  Beside the Chinese delegation, Vivian gives the Minister a cheesy wave and an even cheesier smile.  Joey stands from where he’d been posing as the Confederation’s stenographer, whipping the fake glasses off his face with gusto.  Mai brings up the rear of the party, making sure to flip off a woman from the Britain dressed head to toe in pink who had been exceptionally rude to her.

Bakura, on the other hand, appears behind Albus Dumbledore himself, grabbing the man by his long hair and holding a knife to his neck.  When he sees Ryou’s former Headmaster reaching for the Elder Wand, Bakura briefly activates the Millennium Ring. Dumbledore twitches as he feels it react through the chain that connected all divine weapons.  When Atem does the same, he can see the blood drain from the man’s face.

Bakura smirks, “Go ahead, old man.  Try us. You won’t like the results.”

Then, because he’s has always enjoyed getting reactions out of people who have thought less of him, Bakura makes a show of walking across the tables, purposefully stepping on the shoulders of the world’s Ministers to help him in his descent down to the floor.

_ It’s not like they’re in a position to stop me _ , Bakura thinks, barely holding back a grin as he tugs at the straps of the backpack he’s wearing.

He stops when he gets to Atem.  While her face is as calm as its ever been, her eyes soften a little bit, just for him.  Bakura presses his lips to her cheek, deliberately informing the Confederation of their relationship, and takes her hand in his.

_ It will humanize us,  _ Bakura had said when they were discussing the idea earlier.  Atem had agreed after he’d added,  _ They don’t see us as human.  They don’t see us as capable of love.  Let’s show them that they’re wrong. _

They finish their walk to the podium, standing before the American Minister for Magic.  Reyna Palamo is tall, nearly six feet in height not counting the modest heels that she wore, with thick curly hair and large brown eyes.  She had deep laugh lines around her mouth and a slight accent when she spoke.

Palamo isn’t laughing now as she clutched the podium she stood at so hard that her knuckles turned white.  She asks through gritted teeth, “Who are you? Where is my wand?”

“We are mages,” Atem answers, her voice echoing throughout the  _ Curio. _   “And you are going to listen to us.”

“How dare you!” Shouts a portly man from the British delegation.  Bakura flicks his eyes to the side and sees a familiar face, Minister Cornelius Fudge.  “We don’t want you here!”

“You haven’t got a choice,” Bakura sneers.  He raises a hand and flicks a wizarding galleon across his fingers, “I paid a little visit to Gringotts earlier and made a withdrawal: ten percent from every wizarding bank account in the world.”

It’s a lie, but it’s one that needs to be told so that they won’t implicate the Gringotts goblins.  And if wizards tried to remove their money from the bank, then it would make any future ‘official’ transition of alliance look a bit more natural.

“If you don’t hear us out, we will take the rest and bankrupt your global economy,” Atem says, her voice as smooth as glass.  Bakura fucking  _ loves _  her.

“ _ Hem hem _ ,” came a fake throat-clearing cough.  The woman standing next to Fudge, dressed head to toe in pink, addressed them in a tone that made Bakura very away of what she thought of them, “You have no proof that you can do what you claim.”

“You want proof?” Bakura laughs as he uses the Millennium Ring to check her name.   _ Dolores Umbridge _ , he thinks.   _ Her soul reeks of rot _ .  “Well, you could just  _ check _  your Gringotts bank account, but…”  He reaches for his backpack, unzips the opening, and turns the whole thing upside-down.  Wizarding wands pour out of it, clattering against the floor, and form a pile at his feet.  “If I can do this under your noses, do you seriously think the walls of Gringotts can stop me?”

It’s yet another lie - the mages and non-magics that he and Joey had planned within the  _ Curio Julia _  had done most of the pickpocketing with Bakura coming around to collect after the fact.  But it would build up an air of mystery around who he was and what he was capable of. It gave an inflated look at their abilities, but sometimes bluffing was half the poker game.

Besides, if the Confederation decided to send an assassin to put an end to their threat, why not pin the Gringotts’ robbery’ on someone who couldn’t die?  It would protect Nurnok and her baby, if nothing else.

Another murmur does around the  _ Curio _  as the delegations checked their pockets for their wands, only to come up empty.  The only person left untouched was Albus Dumbledore himself, but that’s because Bakura had no interest in getting into yet another fight with a divine weapon.  The last one had left both him and Atem drained for nearly a month once they’d returned to San Francisco.

“Are you willing to hear what we have to say now?” Atem asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer.  “I believe that the audio from this meeting is being broadcast across all wizarding radio stations across the world.  Good. Let’s keep it that way.” She waved her hands, adjusting the spells on the recording devices to that they could not be shut off without her permission.  “My name is Atem. This is Bakura. And standing with us are mages from the city of San Francisco.”

A call goes up from their companions, just so that anyone listening in could not mistake their numbers.

“San Francisco is a haven for mages and their families and has been for nearly three years.  Earlier this year, the Department of Mysteries launched a full scale attack on our city led by Trista Latner here, not caring about any non-magical casualties that occured,” Bakura says, giving a nod to the Unspeakable and throwing her under the bus in the process.  “We’re still tallying the numbers, Minister Palamo, so we will present you with a non-magical death count for you to give to the President. I’m sure he’s been asking you what happened.”

From the look on Palamo’s face, he’s right.

“As result of the attack, the Department of Mysteries kidnapped and tortured several citizens from our city,” Atem gestures to Mokuba, who shifts from foot to prosthetic foot, exposing his injury.  “My brother’s lost his leg after they forcibly amputated it. Women were raped in captivity, children were subjected to your Cruciatus curse, and... “ she pauses, her voice stuck in her throat. “My grandfather was murdered in cold blood when he refused to give up information on me.”

Bakura moves forward, giving Atem time to compose herself, “The sad thing is, we expected that.  We expected them to hurt  _ us _ , to kill  _ us _ , because we have always been the enemy of the Department of Mysteries.  We never thought that they would turn on their own.”

Bakura walks toward the podium and tries not to cringe when Palamo takes a step back - in fear, in disgust?  Standing front and center, he says, “I owe you an apology, Minister Palamo.”

“For what?” Palamo asks.

“The incident that you describe as an attack on your Ministry was not the result of something escaping from the Department.  It happened because a team of mages lead myself were fleeing the Archives.”

A gasp comes from the benches.  Palamo looks grey, “What?”

“Inside the Archives are the records of wizard-born mages.  I comprised a plan to get in and out your Ministry undetected,” Bakura lies again, “but we were found.  In the ensuing skirmish, my team and I did everything that we could to ensure that no wizarding citizens got caught in the crossfire, but the Department didn’t care--”

“You little--” Latner starts, but Palamo cuts her off.

“Shut.  Up.” The Minister spits and turns back to Bakura.

“We thought that that would be the end of it, but we were wrong,” the Thief King tells her.  “We had stolen wands from Willian’s Abbey in order to pass through security and after they’d come to the auror office to report the crime, the Department of Mysteries kidnapped them to keep you from ever making the connection.  When we went to the island to get our people back, we found them there half dead from starvation. Apparently, the Department stopped sending them food after they’d gotten what information they needed, hoping that the problem they presented would just go away.”

“You found them…?  The five who…?” Palamo whispers.

Atem comes forward, “Six, actually.  Bakura and his team stopped at a shop in William’s Abbey to buy wizarding clothing.  The Department tracked down the witch who’d been on shift at the time and took her as well.”

“Kisha Borrego…” Palamo says.  “Where are they?”

“We were only able to save three,” Bakura says, gesturing for the surviving trio to come forward.  One of the wizards from Palamo’s delegation breaks into tears, jumping over the benches, and crashes into Royce Land, hugging the man for all he’s worth.  Bakura allows himself to smile a bit,  _ This must be the boyfriend… _

“Gerry Maler,” Palamo says.  “He was a security guard who never showed up for work the next day.  We were never able to make the connection, but…”

Bakura can’t answer the question, but surprisingly, Kisha steps up to the plate, “Do you have a picture, Madam Minister?”

When Palamo provides her with one, Kisha swears, “He was in the cell next to mind when we came in.  Ellen said that he was... that someone had cut open his skull and that she could see his brain. After they took him away, we never saw him again.”  Kisha hands the picture back to the Minister, “I hope he died on the island. No one deserves to suffer like that.”

“This was not the only incident that we discovered where the Department of Mysteries had attacked wizarding citizens,” Atem says.  “In the last few months, we have become aware of the existence of wizard-born mages - and with it, the so-called Conversion Program.”

Bakura slaps some of the files that Kitamori had lifted from Pegasus’s office onto the podium, “Its fake.  Trista Latner here knows it, considering that she’s worked with the man who created it: Maximillion Pegasus.  Pegasus designed it to ensure the Department could get rich off of the delusion that you could ‘cure’ magehood like an illness, all while giving him access to children for him to abuse.”

“I’m sure that you’re familiar with the Crawford family,” Atem asks Palamo.  “Cecelia Crawford was one of the cases that Pegasus handled directly. She committed suicide after he impregnated her against her will.  She was fifteen years old.”

“Crawford’s daughter?” One of the men from the American delegation asks.  The Ring tells Bakura that his name is Neal Pendergrass, “They said that it was an accident… that she--”

“She was raped by a pedophile that had been given access to decades of worth of children by the Department of Mysteries.  She killed herself because it was the only option that she had left,” Atem snaps. Pendergrass stays seated and silent.

“They lied about the camp that they send failed wizard-born mages to as well,” Bakura growls.  Behind him, a tiny blonde girl guarded on each side by her two adopted brothers step forward.

“My name is Rebecca Hawkins.  I am eight years old and I am a mage,” she says.  Pendergrass’s jaw comes completely unhinged because, as Bakura realizes, he would have known her family.  “I was given to the Department of Mysteries by my mother and my grandfather on the promise that I would be cured of my illness.  Instead, I was taken to the island and sentenced to execution.”

“Lies.  All lies,” Latner interrupts.  “Aside from war time exceptions, the Department has never harmed a single wizarding citizen - let alone the wizard-born mages that we have sworn to convert.  Do you honestly believe a word that they are saying--”

“Except you have.”

All eyes in the room focus on a single man standing up on the benches.  The desk in front of him as a small French flag hanging out of a coffee mug.

“Minister Bruneau,” Palamo addresses him.  Bakura smirks. Cassie and the Jackals seemed to have worked their magic in order to get information all the way to the top of the wizarding French government.

“We received an anonymous tip yesterday about what was going on in our own division of the Department of Mysteries.  Much like our American counterparts, we performed a raid of our own,” Bruneau says, his voice filled with venom. “Would you like to explain what occurs in your so-called ‘Gardens’, or should I?”

When Latner refuses to speak, Bruneau continues on, “We found nearly two hundred wizarding children inside their doors being trained to become soldiers for the Department.  We have records that go back over a hundred years, detailing how they systematically started civil wars and stole wizarding children who had been orphaned as a result. And beneath their training grounds, we found…” Bruneau looks sick to his stomach, tears welling in his eyes.  “We found a mass grave filled with the skeletons of dead children. We don’t know how many there are. We’ve yet to hit the bottom.”

The  _ Curio Julia  _ erupts, the delegations screaming down at Trista Latner.  Someone throws a coffee mug and it shatters against her shoulder, spilling scalding liquid everywhere.  Latner doesn’t seem to know what to do, helpless without her wand. Bakura watches as Atem stares the Unspeakable down and knows that she’s thinking about how Latner killed Yuugi Mutuo.

A several centurions comes down from the dias where the Italian Ministry officials were seated.  Bakura looks up to see Vestal Luccenia barking out orders in Latin. The centurions that she’d sent down to the main floor grab Latner by the wrists and Bakura just manages to catch the words “Under arrest for crimes against humanity” before the Unspeakable is dragged away.

When the commotion finally dies down, Palamo addresses the mages again, in a voice that shows that she is trying and failing to remain calm, “Thank you for bring this to our attention.  Now… we have listened to your request, so if you are finished, this Confederation would appreciate it if you would return the stolen gold and be on your way.”

Bakura and Atem look at each other, turn back to Palamo, and then burst out laughing.

“I don’t understand what’s so funny,” Palamo says.

Atem sobers up first, “I apologize, Minister.  But you seem to be under the misguided impression that we are here to  _ help _  you.”

“Trista Latner will be charged to the fullest extent of wizarding law for her crimes--”

“Trista Latner is not wholly responsible for everything that the Department of Mysteries has done.  And if you believe that her farce of a trial is what we want from you, then you are complete deluded,” Atem says.

Palamo grits her teeth, “Then  _ what _  do you want?”

“We want this Confederation to sever all ties with the Department of Mysteries.  We want a fully transparent investigation into what they have been doing, with all the information discovered being readily available to the public.  We want you to burn it to the ground and ensure that nothing rises from its ashes,” Atem tells her.

“The war on mages ends today,” Bakura says.  “No more deaths. No more attacks. We get to live in peace without having to look over our shoulders, wondering of today is the day that you lot come after us.”

“We just established that it was the  _ Department of Mysteries _  that is responsible--”

“The Department of Mysteries was created to work alongside the International Confederation of Wizards.  You may not have been directly involved in hanging us, Minister Palamo, but you sure as hell sold them the rope!” Bakura hisses.

“This Confederation is just as guilty, but we are going to give you a chance to right a few of your wrongs,” Atem implores.  “You will change your laws to defend mage rights. You will persecute those who would harm us. And you are going to do this, otherwise we will take every piece of gold that you have and leave your world to implode on itself.”

“Do seriously expect to negotiate with us while you hold an axe over our neck?” Palamo sputters.

“Negotiate?  Is that what you think we are here to do?  No. Minister, we are not here bargain with you.  We are here to tell you the consequences of your actions.  This is how it’s going to be from here on out and nothing you can do or say is going to change that,” Bakura says.

“We didn’t know what they were doing,” Palamo shouts.

“Really?  Then why is the  _ Vestalis Maxima _  arresting the Italian Minister of Magic for treason?”  Atem points up the dais where Vestal Luccenia, their secret supporter, was doing just that.  “If Titus Sidonia knew about the Department of Mysteries’ actions, who’s to say that there aren’t other people in this very room who knew just as much?”

Atem continues on, “For over four hundred years this Confederation has stood by while the Department of Mysteries committed atrocity after atrocity.  But the moment that it involves  _ you _  personally, that’s when you care?  Not when they burned a warehouse of people alive in Lakewood, Ohio.  Not when they attacked a plane of non-magics using Dementors, causing the pilots to commit suicide and take their passengers down with them.  Not when they’ve personally murdered thousands of mages over the centuries. Your silence has been complicity in government sanctioned genocide.  So before you can talk about us holding an axe over your head, I want you to see the blood on your hands. Then, and only then, can you look me in the eye and tell me that we didn’t have to go to such extremes  _ just to get you to fucking listen to us for once _ .”

No one says a single word.  Even the Italian Minister, halfway through being pulled out of the room, has stopped to hear them speak.

“This ends  _ now _ ,” Bakura says.  “And when we are happy with the changes to the laws that you have made, then will we lift our threat.  Do you understand?”

“What you’re asking… It will take decades to accomplish…” Palamo tries to reason with them, but Bakura will have none of it.

“ _ Do you understand? _ ” He repeats.  Palamo nods.

“Good,” Atem says.  “Then we’re done here.  Amanda? Matthew? Take us home.”

In a dazzling display of Spellcaster ability, the two siblings slam their hands to the map-covered floor, activating the magic within it and focusing its gaze on San Francisco.  The city blossomed around their feet, its sprawling hills and winding roads artfully illustrated in black, brushed ink. Pure white magic crackles around their group, forming a circle of blinding light.

Amanda and Matthew chant as one, “ _ ~Guard and guide our trip and all who venture on this road.  May the Mother of Darkness and the Father of Light see us safely to our destination, see us safely home.~ _ ”

“We will be in touch,” Atem tells the Confederation before the world around Bakura fades to black.  He catches snippets of a thousand conversations before they touch down onto the ground.

“And so it begins,” he says as he turns to Atem, pressing his forehead to her’s.  Together, they breathe as one.

“And so it begins,” she agrees, her fingers trailing down his cheek.  He kisses her softly as the wizarding world’s secretly assumed superiority crumbles at their feet.


	21. Diversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s Reiko. I’m Reiko,” Kitamori tells her, pressing her forehead against the bars. Tears stream down her face, uncontrollable and unstoppable. “Gara, please. Please.”
> 
> “Reiko?” Gara asks, her voice a breathy whisper. “Is it… Is it you?”
> 
> Gellert Grindelwald’s twin sister crawls forward on her hands and knees, the small scraps of clothing that she’s been given tearing against the uneven stone floor. When she reaches the bar, Gara reaches through them and cups Kitamori’s face, “You’re here. You’re… you’re here… I thought…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): XO belongs to Beyoncé Knowles.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of mass murder, violence, suicide, gore, alcoholism, smoking, sexual situations, unsafe sex, PTSD flashbacks, child abuse, loss of consent, and nudity.

It’s raining in London.  Keith stares out the window of the muggle bar, watching the droplets hitting the pavement, his fingers clutching at the glass in his hands.  It's water. Keith can’t remember drinking something non-alcoholic in months, but Mook had to yank his beer out of his grasp the moment that the bartender had set it on the table.

“We need you sober,” she’d said, and Keith had almost fought her on it but he didn’t have the energy.  Kitamori had downed it instead, the effects of whatever the Department had done to her making it impossible for her to get drunk, and offered him her water as a shitty compromise.  

He and Kitamori had finally talked about their history in bed with one another, but Keith had barely been able to comprehend it at the time.  She’d said that attraction as her main basis for wanting to fuck him, something about a thing for blondes. But then she’d mentioned that she’d never actually slept with anyone outside of mission parameters or Department orders before and Keith had wanted to throw up.

The idea that he’d been her first one hundred percent consensual relationship was beyond fucked up.  The fact that she’d  _ wanted _ her it to be with  _ him _  was almost impossible to believe. But Kitamori had promised to be honest with all of them going forward, even if what she was going to tell them made Keith want to be violently ill.

_ Pegasus deserved nothing more than what he’d gotten _ , he thinks as he looks across the street and focuses on the old red telephone box on the other side of the road.  Somewhere miles below their feet was Gara Grindelwald, another woman who’d been taken and abused by Pegasus. Keith glances at Kitamori, who’s been green and pasty since they got here.   _ I’d be in the same shape, if I’d been through what she had. _

It hits Keith just then, barrelling through his foggy memories of his actual life, that he’d probably been  _ born _ in the same tunnels that Grindelwald was being kept in.  His shaking hands make the glass that he’d holding clatter against the wood of their table.

“Everyone ready?” Mook asks the team.  Beside her, a bewitched muggle radio chirps out the Confederation broadcast, mentioning that the delegations were being seated and that the conference would be starting soon.  Keith doesn’t know what Bakura and his mages have planned, but the tip that they’d gotten from Meron Tadesse told them that something would be happening during the speeches. “We’ve got an hour - maybe less.  So let’s go.”

Coppermine leaves some muggle money on the table to pay the owner as Mook leads them outside.  They cross the street at the intersection and head toward the old telephone box.

Scott pulls open the box’s door, which is missing several panes of glass, and they all stuff themselves inside.  Kitamori reaches for the ancient looking receiver, holding it in her hand for a moment before dialing the number.

“Six… Two… Four…” she mutters under her breath, “Four… Two…”

The dial whirls back into place and a cool female voice rings out from inside the telephone box itself.

“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic.  Please state your name and business.”

“1-0-1-4 override,” Kitamori says calmly and Keith silently prays that no one has gotten around to changing all the codes just yet.

For a beat, nothing happens.  But then the female voice spoke again, “Britain thanks you for your service, Plant #1,014.  Please be advised that the Ministry of Magic closes in one hour,” and there is nothing out of the ordinary when the telephone box shudders and slowly descends into the ground.

After about a minute in total darkness, a ring of light shines around their feet, widens, and rises slowly up their bodies.  Keith’s eyes water at the sudden brightness as the British Ministry of Magic is revealed.

“The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day,” the woman’s voice says again as they exit the telephone box.  Mook leads the charge, walking briskly across the main walkway, past the floo arrivals and departures line, and the Fountain of Magical Brethren, before joining the throng of witches and wizards making their way to the golden dates at the far end of the hall.

“Hey!   _ Hey! _  Excuse me!” Shouts the badly shaven wizarding sitting at the security desk.  Keith ducks his head and ignores him, “Hey! You’re supposed to check in when you use the guest entrance!   _ Hey! _ ”

They don’t stop moving.  As Mook said, they don’t have time to deal with the proper procedures.  Besides, if Kitamori’s override hadn’t informed the security guard not to stop them, then something had happened on the Department’s side.  Keith has a bad feeling about this.

“Excuse me,” an Auror with bright pink hair descends upon them, exuding all the bravado of someone who  _ just _ passed their exams.  “You’re going to have to come with me.”

Scott steps forward, throwing on a Dutch accent and transitioning into a persona that Mook had described as a foreign government official.

“Sorry.  My mistake,” the Plant says, flashing a fake ID that labeled him as a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  “We have an appointment in the courtroom downstairs. I should have the paperwork here…” Scott fumbles for something in his pocket, dumping scraps of parchment onto the floor.  “Oh, goodness. I mistake--"

He bends down at the same time as the Auror girl, who’s just trying to help.  But Scott is too quick for her, firing off a quick Imperius Curse and catching the Auror in the chest.  The girl blinks, her rapidly changing eyes shifting in confusion as she tries to fight it, before succumbing to the control.  Keith is kind of amazed watching the whole thing; despite everything, he’d never actually expected Scott to be anything other than this weird robotic figure that always stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mook.

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” Scott says, his voice returning to its natural, dull monotone.  “Tell the security guard, Auror…”

“Tonks,” the girl supplies, in a dreamy tone.

“Auror Tonks.  Move along,” Scott says.

Auror Tonks stands up and drifts toward the security guard, presumably giving him some kind of explanation.  Keith follows the rest of them into the elevator, pulling the golden gates shut before anyone follows them in.

That does keep anyone from piling in the moment the doors open on the third floor, the cool female voice ringing out, “ _ Level Three, Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, incorporating the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, Obliviator Headquarters and Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.” _  Keith is pressed into the far corner by an overweight witch with a ridiculous looking green hat that seemed to contain a live niffler.  He glances over at Mook, who’s wearing an equally uncomfortable expression at the half naked ninety year old man just to her left. Keith almost catches Scott glaring at the wizard and wonders if there was any truth to Mook’s admission that the kid was in love with her.

It doesn’t stop there.  Once the naked man leaves, they’re joined by a group of goblins who pressed their heads together and whispered conspiritally on the fourth floor, a conglomerate of foreign wizards on the fifth, and some poor kid who looks like he’d just been put together after a splinching on the sixth.  They all clear out by the time the female voice says, “ _ Level eight, Magical Maintenance, Wizarding Examinations Authority, Department of Magical Education, and Public Information Services,”  _ and Keith lets out a breath that he didn’t know that he was holding.

When the gate closes, he spots Kitamori clutching at the railing around them, looking pale as a ghost.  He watches as she bites down on his lip so hard that blood trickles down her chin.

“Control,” Kitamori whispers to herself.  “ _ Control _ .”

Her eyelids flutter shut, tilts her head to the side and cracks her neck.  When she opens her eyes again, Keith realizes that he’s not looking at Reiko Kitamori anymore.

“ _ Level nine, Department of Mysteries. _ ”

The gate swings back and Kiyoshi walks out.

The Department of Mysteries had branches in nearly every Ministry around the world.  In America, there was the Archives. Plants and Seedlings were trained in the French Gardens.  Her in Britain were the Labs, the secret underground facility to test the very limits of wizarding magic itself.

The entrance was at the end of a long dark hall lined with torches that emitted a strange white-blue light.  The door swings open and a pair of Unspeakables rush out, their wands held aloft.

Keith barely has time to think,  _ We’ve been made, _ before Kitamori palms two of her wands and fires off a pair of silent Killing Curses.

Meron Tadesse had set them up with a black market wand dealer in Peru before sending them off to London.  The man had no talent for making wands, but he could match them to wizards like nothing Keith had ever seen before.  Keith himself had walked away with an elm wand, with a backup made of willow strapped to his ankle. Coppermine had been paired with two Alders, while Mook and Scott had both gotten a mahogany and yew each.

On the other hand, Kitamori had requested four - something that had made the dealer nearly bulk at the thought.  But in the end, she’d taken two blackthorn wands, one made of fir, and a final made of hawthorn. As she’d later explained, Kitamori had always had multiple wands on her person once she joined up with the Head, using them for different purposes.

Kitamori slides her two blackthorn wands back into her hip holsters, barely blinking as she steps over the corpses of the two men she’d just killed.  Scott pauses to examine them for a second before he says, “I recognize them. Plant #85,521M and Plant #85,482. They were in the same batch as I was.”

Mook swears as they all line up on either side of the door, preparing for a breach.  Keith grips his wand tightly. Coppermine slowly turns the knob, waits for a second, and then rushes inside.

The black circular foyer is empty, lit only by the shivering blue torches.  They press together, back to back with their wands pointed outwards, as the main door shuts on its own and leaves them in near complete darkness.  A tremendous rumbling noise echoed around them, the candles moving lightly to the left, as the walls began to rotate.

Keith hears Kitamori shout out, “Override 1-0-1-4!” But it does nothing to stop the defensive spell from activating.  If anything, the wall seems to rotate faster, the flames around them blurring together to form neon blue lines, before screeching to a sudden stop.

“They knew we were coming,” Mook mutters.  She turns to Kitamori, “I thought that you said that your Override codes would work?’’

“I said that I hoped they would.  Clearly, Hendrix figured out that I was still alive and had gone off the book,” Kitamori snaps back, mentioning the Head of the Department of Mysteries like it wasn’t anything at all - and hadn’t that been a mind fuck when Kitamori had explained just  _ who _ they were working for.

“So what now?” Coppermine asks, sounding as nervous as Keith feels.

“We have to try each door, one by one,” Kitamori says, her eyes flicking between the dozen or so choices.  “There should be connecting doors within each room.”

“You got any idea which one she’ll be in?” Keith asks.

Kitamori shakes her head, “I’m hoping Time, but there’s no guarantee.”

The first room they enter clearly doesn’t study time.  The walls and ceiling are pitch black, twinkling with stars from far off universes.  In the center of the room was a massive replica of the Earth, spinning in an endless circle of blue oceans and white clouds.  Moving around it in curving epicycles were the different planets of their system: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and the Sun, and all of those that followed.  They’d even included the newest world to be discovered, Pluto, which had caused a buzz in the astronomical crowd about five years ago.

The floor was littered with corpses.  Some lay face down in pools of their own blood, others leaning against the walls, their mouths twisted in their final grimace of pain.  One unlucky soul had been thrown into the model Sun, his body now a blackened husk of smoldering ashes.

“What…?” Coppermine breathes, his eyes wide with shock.

Keith swallows, thinking of the two Plants that Kitamori had killed on the way in.   _ What if they hadn’t been attacking us?  What if they had been running? _

“We need to keep moving,” Mook says, pointing at a far wall where a door, surrounded by starlight, appears out of thin air.  They make their way across the floor and suddenly, the planets move out of alignment, heedlessly knocking the bodies around as they pass by.  The massive orbs swirl around them dramatically before sliding back into the center. Except now, instead of the Earth being at the center as it should be, the planets - Earth included - start to rotate around the Sun.

Before Keith can ask a question, they’re through the door.

This room was a dimly lit and large beyond comprehension, shaped like a massive amphitheater with stone steps descending towards the pit.  A raised dais stood in the center of the room, where a large archway that looked so created and ancient that Keith was incredible that it was still standing.  Hanging from the arch was a dark black curtain that seemed to move ever so slightly despite the stillness in the air.

There were more dead Unspeakables in here too, lining the stone steps and surrounding the archway.  They bore no marks on them, no sign of the vicious slaughter in the other room. Instead, every single one of them seemed to be reaching for the  _ thing _ on the central dais, their faces seemingly at peace.

A whisper, some strange voice, seemed to echo around the room and Keith had the strangest feeling that someone was on the other side of the archway, fingers pressing against the curtain with feather light touches.  He swallows hard and thinks he hears the twin brother that he never got to know, hissing,  _ I’m here.  I’m right here.  Reach for me. Come to me.  I’ve missed you… _

“What is that thing?” Scott asks, sounding horribly shaken as fear cuts through his Plant training like a knife through butter.  Keith looks over just in time to see Mook press her hand into his, muttering something into his ear. She looks just as terrified as Scott and just as grey as Kitamori, who’s frozen to the spot.

The only one that looks unaffected is Pete.  The boy frowns, stepping forward to examine the archway, “It looks… like a rip in the fabric of the world…”  He leans down and touches the ancient stone of the dais, “This place, it’s ancient. It couldn’t have been here when the Ministry was built.”

“You’re right,” comes a voice from behind and Keith turns to see a man sitting on the top row of the stone steps, picking at his dark robes.  The man looks just as entranced by the archway as Keith is. “The Veil has been here a long, long time and the Ministry was constructed around it.  But to call it a Rip… No. It’s not Rip, only a pale imitation of one.”

“Bode?” Kitamori asks, springing free of her stupor.  “Broderick Bode?”

Keith’s eyes widen.  Pegasus had said that they’d given Gara to a man named Bode.   _ How the fuck is he still alive? _

“Kiyoshi,” Bode says, a sad smile on his face.  He stood up and began his descent downwards. Bode was a man in his seventies, with lank grey hair that framed his gloomy-looking face.  But his eyes were different, staring them down with unblinking focus. “I was under the impression that you were dead.”

“You’ve been misinformed, I’m afraid,” Kitamori tells him.

“Are you here to kill me?” Bode asks.

Kitamori raises an eyebrow, “Do you really think that, if I was here to kill you, that I’d let you  _ know _ that?”

Bode’s lips twitch, “No, I guess not.  Have you come to join us, my dear?”

“Join you?” Kitamori tilts her head to the side in confusion.  Her hands slide back to her wand holsters and Keith follows suit.  There’s no way that this guy was left alive by accident.

Bode gingerly steps onto the dais where they are grouped together, his mouth thinning as he looked at them.  The light illuminating the archway throws his wrinkled face into sharp relief, aging him nearly a hundred years.  His unbroken stare draws Keith’s gaze to his eyes, then to the lines of his forehead, where he spots one that looks like an old scar.  It incircles Bode’s like a halo.

Everyone else seems to tense, so he’s not the only one who’s noticed it.

“Yes.  Join us.  The Department of Mysteries needs a fresh start, so those who are loyal must pass through the Veil.  Except...” Bode’s grandfather-like smile seems to fade, replaced by hesitation. He looks at his hands.  They’re covered in blood. “...Some weren’t loyal. So I had to… I was ordered to…:

Kiyoshi drops the act first, pointing her fir wand at Bode, “Where’s Gara Grindelwald?” 

Bode tries to go for his wand, but Kitamori is too fast and disarms him.  His wand flies to the other side of the amphitheater and echoes as it clatters on the stone.  Bode snarls, showing off rotting black teeth and launches himself at them without regard to his own safety.

Bode moves like a man possessed, his body contorting in ways that it never should have been able to to catch Kitamori off guard as they fought.  Keith and Coppermine reach in to pry the old man off of her, but Bode sinks his teeth into Coppermine’s arm and pulls, taking a chunk of flesh with him. Keith throws Bode against a wall so hard that he hears bones crack.  Grey liquid seeps out of Bode’s ears and his feet twitch every so often.

Coppermine goes to one knee, clutching his bleeding arm.  He fumbles for his wand, using it to cauterize his wound. Mook approaches Bode’s broken form, her wand at the ready, and crouches down to start going through his pockets for anything useful.

“What the fuck?” Coppermine hisses, unable to take his eyes off of Bode.

“Reprogrammed,” Scott answers.  “They carved out his brain and replaced everything that he was with something else.  Look,” the Plant points at Bode’s body, which seems to be trying to get up and attack despite the injuries that it's sustained.

“Anyone who’s been reprogrammed as a kill code implanted into their subconscious,” Kitamori explains, still trying to catch her breath.  “Bode probably didn’t even realize what he was doing.”

“What if they did that to your friend?” Coppermine asks her as Mook returns, holding a single key that she’d found in Bode’s pocket.

“Then I owe it to her to put her down myself,” she answers.  Mook tosses her the key and Kitamori catches it midair, turning it over in her hands to read the inscription.  “ _ Love _ .”

“The stories about this place always talked about a room that was kept locked at all times because what was being studied inside was too powerful,” Keith says.  “If Bode has that key--”

“Then she’s in there,” Kitamori says, looking determined.

“We should get going,” Mook frowns, searching around for an exit.  On the other side of the amphitheater, a half dozen doors appear, melting out of the stone wall.  “Well, that wasn’t creepy at all…”

They leave Bode where he lays, his brain slowly sliding out of his ears, and climb the stone benches on the other side of the room.  When they get to the doors, Kitamori picks one at random and slides the key into the lock. Something heavy slides into place and the door opens on its own.

Whatever Keith was expecting, it wasn’t this.

Instead of the dark room surround the Veil or the starlight space containing a dozen celestial bodies, the Lab division dedicated to the study of love looks more like a temple than anything else.  The room was brightly lit, with massive white pillars stretched up on either side of the room. The ceiling had been enchanted to look like the sky on a sunny day and a warm breeze with the scent of early spring flowers filled the air.  On the walls were moving frescoes showing a man and a woman intertwined in acts of love: embracing their children, kissing for the first time, a newly wedded couple in their marriage bed.

It’s the same couple over and over again.  They both have red hair, though the husband’s was a shade or two darker.  They have five children: three girls and two boys, all with the man’s auburn hair.  The eldest, a woman who is the spitting image of her father, wears a suit of armor and a flowing cloak of yellow and gold over her shoulders.  She turns to look at the intruders, smirks cruelly, and toys with the sword strapped to her hip.

In the center of the room is a small square pool.  Instead of water, the liquid inside has a mother-of-pearl sheen with steam that rises in a series of swirls.  The mist gives off a subtle smell, simultaneously reminding Keith of owl’s feathers, overly sweet coffee, and greasy eggs with orange juice.   He swallows hard and steps away.

“Amortentia,” Scott answers.  “The most powerful love potion in the world.”

Keith briefly wonders what the Plant smells, but given the way Scott keeps looking at Mook, he doesn’t really have to guess.

“This is the House of Sidonia, one of the original Roman families to possess wizarding magic,” Kitamori says, completely unprompted.  “I mean, the frescoes are different and don’t even get me started on the statues, but the design for this room is based on the house they have in the  _ Forum Romanum _ .”

“What does that mean?” Mook asks.

Kitamori frowns, “It means that if Pegasus missed a hint  _ this fucking big _ , then he’s an even bigger idiot than I thought.”  When Mook makes a noise of confusion, she says, “I’ll explain later.”

Kitamori wanders around for a moment, taking in the entire spectacle, before coming to stand at the four statues at the front of the temple.  They depict four people, two women and two men.

“Darkness and Light,” Keith says, reading the inscription on the middle pair.  ‘Darkness’ was a naked woman carved out of black marble, while the man was equally as unclothed and sculpted out of white stone.  When Keith moved to the left, the second male statue was labeled ‘Chaos,’ shaped from a massive opal and armored in obsidian. The final woman, constructed out of diamond and amber, was described as ‘Order.’

“The Sidonia’s have statues of their notable ancestors like Pompilia Sidonia, not these four,” Kitamori ponders.  “Who are they? Why are they here?”

“Isn’t this a temple?” Asks Coppermine, who’s moved over to where they’re standing.  “Maybe they’re gods?”

Keith almost argues - old habits dry hard - but then sees the logic in it, “Couldn’t  _ worship _ be considered a form of love?”

“Still, I’ve never heard of these four before,” Kitamori frowns.  She shakes her head, “If this is House Sidonia, then there should be lower levels.  Come on.”

Kitamori leads them through the back of the temple, lighting the torches on the wall along the way.  She finds a winding staircase that dips underground and walks into the most secure dungeons in the world.

Keith refuses to look at the cages.  He can only guess what he will find if he does: the remnants of those that have created a hundred Horcruxes, bodies that have had other people’s souls injected into them, the bits and pieces of people who have been Splinched across time.  He keeps his eyes forward and blocks out the sound until they reach the final cell.

Kitamori lets out a sound so desperate, so inhuman, and falls to the ground.

Gara is old, her face lined with each and every one of the hundred and thirty-six years that she’s been alive.  Her head is bald with dark brown spots covering wrinkled skin and eyes that are filmed over with cataracts. Gara’s bone-thin fingers shake uncontrollably and she doesn’t respond the first few times that Kitamori calls her name.

When she does eventually turn, Gara doesn’t recognize her old friend’s voice.

“It’s Reiko.  I’m Reiko,” Kitamori tells her, pressing her forehead against the bars.  Tears stream down her face, uncontrollable and unstoppable. “Gara, please.   _ Please _ .”

“Reiko?” Gara asks, her voice a breathy whisper.  “Is it… Is it you?”

Gellert Grindelwald’s twin sister crawls forward on her hands and knees, the small scraps of clothing that she’s been given tearing against the uneven stone floor.  When she reaches the bar, Gara reaches through them and cups Kitamori’s face, “You’re here. You’re… you’re here… I thought…”

“I’m sorry.  I’m so, so…” Kitamori hiccups, clutching at Gara’s hands.  “I tried to visit you, but Hendrix wouldn’t let me.”

“And watch me grow old?  To wither away?” Gara shakes her head.  “It would have been better if you have forgotten me entirely.”

“You’re the most beautiful sight I’ve seen in a hundred years,” Kitamori says, and all Keith can hear is the unspoken, desperate  _ I love you _ that goes unsaid.

“Why have you come, Reiko?  And who…” Gara tilts her head to the side.  “Who are your four companions?”

Mook steps forward and introduces them, making sure to lend Gara her hands when the old woman asks for something to touch.  When she gets to Keith, Gara stops and whispers, “You’re Trista Latner’s boy.”

Keith swallows hard, “Yeah.  You knew her?”

Gara nods, “Latner used to come to me for advice, in the beginning.  When she knew that Dumbledore’s legacy project was getting shut down, she offered to swap my daughter with your brother to keep her safe from Pegasus.  What happened to your twin? She never told me.”

Keith retracts his hands, “I killed him.  During the Seedling Program.”

Gara hisses, the air escaping her lungs whistling through her missing teeth, “Bitch.”

“Pegasus is dead,” Kitamori confirms.  “And we found your daughter.”

“ _ Amelia _ ?” Gara gasps.  “You found…?”

Keith nods even though Gara can’t see them, remembering their last few months searching through muggle adoption records.  After she’d picked Pegasus’s brain apart, Kitamori had become suspicious of how quickly Blaine Garrish had been able to locate Tom Riddle after he and Latner had disposed of Gara’s daughter.  Figuring that they would have to drop Amelia Grindelwald at the same orphanage that they found him, Scott and Mook had gone undercover to steal the documents that they needed to find the lost girl.

“I’m getting you out,” Kitamori says, standing and pointing her fir wand at the cage.  “ _ Alohomora _ .”

The locking spell sparked, fighting the charm for a moment before finally clicking open.  The bars dissolved into the ground and, for the first time in centuries, Gara Grindelwald was free.

The old woman stares openly, “Reiko?  I…? I don’t think that this is--”

“We’re going to take down the Department!” Coppermine says, sounding excited.  “After you, Reiko says that we’re going to head to Nurmengard to get your brother and--”

Gara interrupts him, “I can’t… I can’t fight.  I’m too old, too weak…”

“We can fix that.  Trust me,” Kitamori says.  “Gara, please. Come with me.”

“Reiko, I haven’t… I don’t know…” Gara whimpers, her face unnaturally pale with sagging cheeks and unfocused eyes.  It makes Keith realizes that she probably hasn’t left her cage in decades.

“I can carry you,” Keith offers.  Gara shallows hard, nods, and reaches upwards.

Gara Grindelwald is feather light in Keith’s arms, her fingers clutching at his shirt so gently as she buried her face in his shoulder.  Every so often, she peeks out from where she’s hiding, her nose twitching at the change in smell.

“We’re still underground,” Gara says when they reach the top of the steps.  Keith is confused for a moment before remembering that the sky above was actually an enchanted ceiling.

“Yeah,” he answers.  “How can you tell?”

“I always heard the wind at night, but I never…” Gara seems to stall, her mouth hanging uselessly for a moment before she continues, “I never heard the weather change.  No storms. No rain. No...” she pauses again. “Where am I?”

“The Labs,” he tells her.

“Britain?” She says, surprised.  Then she seems to sober, her nose pressing into Keith’s collar, “Bode always put on different accents.  I never knew…”

When they step out into the temple’s main hall, they’re not alone.

Keith recognizes the man that stands before them.  He had dark, slicked back hair and appeared to be no older than thirty.  Keith had first seen him during the fight in William’s Abbey all those months ago but remembered him most recently from his mother’s notes that the Millennium Spellbook had revealed.  He tightens his grip around Gara.  _ This _ is his father.

“Blaine Garrish,” the old woman whispers.  “I fucking  _ hate _ him.”

Keith can’t help but agree.

Garrish starts to clap, a toothy grin on his face, “Well done, Kiyoshi.  Well done indeed. I didn’t think that you’d have it in you, but once again, you manage to outdo yourself.  I’m impressed.” Kitamori braces herself for a fight, but Garrish throws up his hands in surrender, “Now, now.  None of that. I’m here to congratulate you. You've accomplished your mission. You can come home now, Kiyoshi.”

Keith’s head isn’t the only one that snaps over to Kitamori.  Fear coursed through his veins.  _ If this was a setup… _ he thinks,  _ Then we’re fucked if we have to fight her. _

“What are you talking about?”  Kitamori hisses and her response is nowhere near as relieving as it should be.

Garrish clicks his tongue, “Come on, Kiyoshi.  Did you honestly believe that Helena sent you on this mission just to rid the Department of  _ one _ corrupt staff member?  If she wanted Pegasus dead, she could have given that order at any time.  Instead, she sent you on this overly complicated mission where you were almost guaranteed to betray her.”  Garrish snorts, “Do you seriously think that we didn’t see what you intended to do?”

Kitamori shifts in her stance, edging forward to put herself in between Garrish and the team.  Both of her battle wands are in her hands.

“The Department of Mysteries is corrupt, an imitation of what it used to be.  It needed to be torn down so that those doing the  _ real _ work could do so without being distracted by all of this,” Garrish gestures vaguely at the temple around him.  “Now, we never expected that you would use mages to do your dirty work, but we never had a doubt that this would end with information about the Department’s more… forbidden projects being strewn across the floor of the Confederation.”

“You  _ created _ the Plant program!” Kitamori shouted.  “You’re responsible for most of what Bakura and Atem are using to destroy this place!”

Garrish shrugs, “It made sense at the time.  It doesn’t matter now. You’ve done wonderfully, girl.  You can come home now.”

Someone taps on Keith’s mental shields, subtly asking permission to send him a message.  At first he thinks that it’s Mook or even Kitamori, but the memory that he receives is not from either of them.  It’s of a young Gara, staring at a scoreboard that shows her Plant code in the number one position. He feels the pride that she’d felt in that moment, the overwhelming sense of victory.

Then, Gara immediately digs through Keith’s own memories.  She showed him and his brother inside the Bell Jar with Trista Latner outside, aging them back and forth.  Keith nods, throwing up his shields one more time, and feels Gara’s hand slide to his hip, grasping at the elm wand that he has holstered there.

“If you’re here to kill me, you could at least do me the honour of being honest,” Kitamori sneers at Garrish.  “Helena values loyalty over everything else. She’s not about to welcome me home after I betrayed her.” Then she smirks, “Just like she’s going to do with you.”

Garrish rolls his eyes and brandishes his wand, “Really, girl?  You want to fight me? I created the program that taught you everything you know.”

Garrish lashes out, firing a silent Killing Curse and Kitamori defends, the resulting explosion shaking the marble pillars of the courtyard and cracking the tile floor around the room.  Keith barely has any time to react before Garrish moves, smashing through the shields that Mook and Coppermine are trying to put up with curse after curse.

“Keith!  Take her!  Take her and run!” Kitamori shouts and Keith bolts for the exit.  Gara uses his wand and fires blindly at the wall, blasting open one of the doors.  He sprints into the circular entrance hall, slamming the door behind him.

As the defensive wall begins to spin, Keith is ambushed by three Plants.  He drops Gara on the ground, moving as quickly as he can to fend them off, scrounging for the yew wand at his ankle.  He frees it, firing off a quick series of curses that catch one of the Plants in the throat and another in the chest. Blood splatters across the floor as Gara, old and weak, kills the third with a quick flash of green.

Keith doesn’t have time to think.  He scoops Gara up off the ground and she swears colourfully, making him aware of her now broken hip.  But that doesn’t stop her from urging him on, through another set of doors and back into the depths of the Department.

The next room has a series of lamps hanging on gold chains from a low ceiling and an enormous tank in the center of the room.  Keith rushes passed it, barely catching the slimy, cauliflower looking fish that inhabited it and running kicking open one of the doors in the back.  He stops cold when he finally gets inside.

The Time Room was one of the smaller rooms in the Labs, with its walls lined with clocks, set to different times from varying places around the world.  It was also intended to be one of the more beautiful ones, with the multicoloured dancing lights flitting around the room. In the center was the Bell Jar, a huge crystal structure that contained a single hummingbird.  Keith watches as the bird hatches from its egg, aged until it hung on the cusp of death, and then reverted back to its shell.

Keith feels sick.   _ I was born because of this room. _

“Keith, please,” Gara whispers in his arms.  “Please, I can’t walk, I need you to--”

Memories flood into his mind, images of Latner’s blank face as she scribbles down notes, ink splattered across her face as she shifts him back and forth.  Once, she’d pushed him past beyond his own conception just to see what would happen. Keith doesn’t remember much of what happened, only that for just that moment,  _ he hadn’t been Keith Howard _ .  He’d been someone else, with a life and a name and a set of memories that were his but weren’t.

He grinds his teeth together, refusing to let it overtake him, and trudges forward.  Keith sets Gara down on a desk nearby and faces the Bell Jar, this thing straight out of his nightmares, and thinks,  _ Fuck you. _

He rushes forward and slams his entire body weight into the Jar, knocking it off balance.  Keith does it again and the Jar rocks back and forth.  _ Fuck you _ , he thinks again and makes his final charge.

The Bell Jar falls to the floor, the crystal casing shattering into thousands of tiny pieces.  The hummingbird takes flight for the first time in its life, buzzing around the room and bumping into clocks.  Keith turns to Gara, remembering all of the times that Latner had done this to him, and thinks,  _ Fuck you in particular, bitch _ .

He sets Gara into the oozing green liquid, controlling the flow of its power like he’d seen Latner do a thousand times.  Gara twists, her back arching in pain, as the magic of the Bell Jar courses through her. Her skin flushes with colour, the muscles under her skin bulging out as blonde hair erupts from her head.  The silvery film disappears from her eyes, revealing her bright blue irises.

Keith pulls her out of it just in time.  Gara’s breathes, using her lungs to their fullest capacity for the first time in decades.  When she grabs at Keith’s arms, her grip is so strong and her voice is clear. He can barely believe that this is happening.

“Keith,” Gara says, pulling back and picking up his fallen wand.  “We have to go.”

He nods, getting to his feet and unable to believe his eyes.  Keith offers her his coat and she pulls it over her shoulders, covering herself as the old shreds of her clothing falls to pieces.  Her gaze is hard when she looks toward the door and Keith remembers that Gara Grindelwald was ranked as being  _ better _ than Kitamori.  She twists on the spot and disappears, apparating silently and leaving him in the dust.

* * *

 

Reiko apparates, flashing back into existence in the air behind Garrish.  But he’s ready for her, his wand aimed over his shoulder. She just manages to get her guard up before he blinds her with a flash of light.  Reiko twists, rolls, and apparates away, but not before Garrish reaches out and grabs her arm.

_ Shit!  Shit!  _  She screams as she tries to blast him away when they land.  Garrish blocks her, kicks out with his leg and slams it into Mook’s stomach, knocking the witch back onto the floor and breaking her bones.  Then Garrish pulls a knife from his belt and throws it dead on, catching Pete in the right shoulder and forcing him to drop his wand. He blocks Reiko’s punch and tosses her into Scott, who nearly slices her in half with the call of “ _ Diffindo! _ ”

Reiko stumbles to her feet, wheezing.  Beside her, Scott looks dazed and confused.  Garrish takes the time to gloat.

“I always knew that it would come to this, Kiyoshi,” Garrish drawls, head tilting to the side.  “I knew from the moment Helena gave you this stupid mission of yours. I was always going to be the one to kill you.”

“We’re not dead yet, asshole,” Mook grunts and lashes out, a wicked purple light slashing through the air.  Garrish banishes it and blasts her across the room. Mook’s head cracks against the fresco and her eyes flutter shut.

Scott shouts, wild and raw, and rushes to her, skidding to a halt beside Mook.  Reiko doesn’t dare look, doesn’t take her eyes off of Garrish for a minute because the moment she does he’s going to strike.

“Did you really think that you could get away with it?  If you’d just gone down the Department like you were supposed to, it would have solved all of our problems,” Garrish hisses.  “Instead, you had to get  _ attached _ ,” he glances at Pete and Reiko has never felt fear like this before, “and I had to come in to clean up your damn mess!”

Desperate to keep him talking, Reiko blurts out, “You’re one to talk about getting attached, though.  Aren’t you, Aloc Flint?”

Garrish pauses in his advance.

“How did you…?” He tries to ask.

Reiko smirks, “I really do like history, you dumbass.  It’s not just an aspect of the Kiyoshi character that she helped me develop all those years ago.  I figured it out all on my own, just like I figured out who Helena Hendrix actually is.”

Garrish snarls at her but says nothing.

“Aloc Flint, a founding member of the original Confederation of Wizards and former leader of the Coalition of Sacred Brothers, goes missing shortly after the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy,” Reiko says, quoting from Bathilda Bagshot’s  _ A History of Magic _ .  “No one knows what happened - no one outside of the newly formed Department of Mysteries at least.  Because our records show that Aloc Flint is the first Assistant Director of the Department. I guess that was actually back when people consciously made a choice to abandon their families to join the Department and weren’t just  _ kidnapped against their will _ .”

“How did you realize that it was me?” Garrish questions her, his voice harsh and cold.  Behind him, Reiko sees Mook’s eyes flicker open and a rush of relief floods through her.

Reiko continues talking because they all need a few seconds to regroup, “Believe it or not, the mages helped finally put the pieces together for me.  Turns out, one of them has the power to see your real name or something like that.” Reiko shrugs, “Apparently, you ran into him in William’s Abbey.”

Reiko continues on, “But what would make someone of your stature abandon everything to take the place of  _ assistant _ in an up jumped organization like the Department of  _ fucking _ Mysteries.  Even the promise of a long life on anti-aging potions couldn’t have been enough.  No, you had to have the real thing. And back then, there was only one thing that you could do to ensure that you’d get access to her divine weapon.”

Reiko grins, “You married Helena, didn’t you?”

Garrish doesn’t answer, but that’s all the confirmation that she needs.

“Not out of love, of course.  Helena Hendrix doesn’t value something as frivolous and whimsical as romantic love anymore.  Love didn’t keep Emeric from going mad on the power of the Elder Wand all those centuries ago,” Reiko points to the frescos on the wall portraying the happy family that Helena used to have.  “You married her to ensure her loyalty and for her to ensure yours. But you betrayed her like I did. So how long do you think she’s going to keep you around after you’ve killed me?’’

“I’ve been  _ loyal _ \--” Garrish starts, but Reiko doesn’t let him finish.

“ _ You fucked Latner! _  You had kids with her and you think that Helena didn’t care?” Reiko laughs at him, “You’re as stupid as Pegasus was!”

Garrish stays silent for a minute before swallowing, “Did you tell them?  Did you tell the mages who Helena really is?”

“Don’t need to.  They’re smart as hell.  They’ll figure it out for themselves,” Reiko shrugs.  Her back finally hits the wall behind her. She’s cornered.   _ Fuck _ .

“Well, then.  I guess we’re done here then,” Garrish says, raising his wand.  “ _ Avada-- _ ”

A loud, echoing  _ crack _ sounded out inside the temple, banging off the walls.  Standing dramatically in front of the four statues, her cloak blowing in the enchanted wind and her eyes like chips of ice, was Gara Grindelwald.

Garrish's eyes widen, “Oh  _ fu _ \--”

Gara’s wand slashes through the air faster than anything that Reiko’s seen before, throwing curse after curse, bombarding Garrish with everything she’s got.  He can barely get a shield up before Gara tears it down. Garrish keeps having to backup, further and further, until he’s right at the edge of the Amortentia pool.  He makes the foolhardy mistake of looking over his shoulder before Gara hits him with a blast, sending him falling back into the potion.

Garrish stays under for all of two seconds before he breaches the surface, clawing madly at the sides and hauling himself back out onto the temple floor.  Reiko moves to end it, but Gara blocks her with a gentle touch on her wrist.

“It’s already over,” she tells Reiko.  And it is.

Garrish is sobbing, his chest heaving with each breath he takes.  He curls in on himself, the mother-of-pearl sheen of the Amortentia covering his body and weighing him down.

“Helga!” He screams, the words ripping themselves out of his throat.  “Helga, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I love you!”

“What’s happening?” Keith says, appearing in a crack beside Reiko, sounding just as confused as she is.  “Is he… Is he talking about Helga  _ fucking _ Hufflepuff?”

Reiko nods, “Also known as Perenelle Flamel and Helena Hendrix, Head of the Department of Mysteries.”

“Amortentia doesn’t cause love.  It either creates powerful infatuation or,” Gara motions towards Garrish to explain what’s going on, “amplifies what’s already there to an unhealthy amount.”

“And if you cheated on someone you love…” Pete puts two and two together.  “Oh, fuck…”

Garrish takes out his wand and kneels before the pool, crying, “I didn’t mean to!  I didn’t mean-- I love you so much! Helga!  _ Helga! _ ”

Garrish points his wand at his chest and fires point blank, his body ripped open in a flash of green and a cloud of red mist.  

“The things we do for love,” Gara says.

Reiko looks around at her team.  Scott hovers protectively over Mook, the two so engrossed in each other that nothing else seemed to matter.  Pete, who’d been Reiko’s friend and cared for her enough to follow her into hell, stumbles to his feet. There was Keith, who’d loved Ryou Andrews and mourned his death as if the boy had been his son.  Then there was Reiko herself, who’d betrayed everything that had once mattered to protect the daughter of the love of her life.

Aloc Flint, who’d given four hundred years of his life to an affectionless marriage, floats heartless in a pool of the most powerful love potion in the world, contained within a temple dedicated to his wife’s first husband and only soulmate.

_ The things we do for love, indeed _ , Reiko thinks as finally understands why the door to this room was always locked.  Gara’s fingers entwine with her’s and she has never felt so scared and so powerless in her life.

* * *

 

_ “For over four hundred years this Confederation has stood by while the Department of Mysteries committed atrocity after atrocity, _ ” the voice of the red-headed mage comes over the dented muggle radio that Tilla has set up against a wooden crate.  She lights up a cigarette and sits across the way on a metal cart that their hotel’s restaurant staff use to transport cardboard down to the garbage room.  “ _ Your silence has been complicity in government sanctioned genocide.  So before you can talk about us holding an ax over your head, I want you to see the blood on your hands.  Then, and only then, can you look me in the eye and tell me that we didn’t have to go to such extremes just to get you to,”  _ the station bleeps out the girl’s explicative, “ _ listen to us for once. _ ”

The British wizarding news station (which Tilla is pretty sure is controlled by the Daily Prophet, which is controlled by the Ministry, which is controlled by the Confederation, and on and on until it reaches  _ Helga fucking Hufflepuff _ apparently) calls in their anchors to discuss the issue.  The witch and wizard argue back and forth as to whether or not the Minister of Magic should bend to the mage’s demands, all while pointing the blame securely on the Department of Mysteries.

_ The end of an era, _ Tilla thinks, raising her cigarette to her lips and leaning back against the cold brick of the alley wall.   _ Good riddance. _

“Ma’am?”

Tilla glances toward the entrance to see Depre standing there, wearing his muggle disguise.  He looks as awkward in the loose t-shirt and jeans as she feels in her orange sundress and jacket.  She misses her robes. They didn’t show off so much skin.

“You should be resting up in the hotel room,” Depre says as he approaches.  When he gets close enough, he frowns at the cigarette in her mouth. “Those are unhealthy.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she sighs and drops it on the ground, stamping it out with her foot.  “Kitamori and Grindelwald were having a heart to heart and I didn’t want to interrupt. And you’ve already seen to healing me up - good job on getting rid of the head trauma, by the way.  Besides,” she motions toward the radio, “the wizarding world is exploding. I didn’t want to miss it.”

Depre joins her on the cart, pressing his thigh against hers, and listens to the radio in comforting silence.  Every so often, the switches back to the mages speech, providing hair-raising quotations like, “ _ The war on mages ends today, _ ” and “ _ You seem to be under the misguided impression that we are here to  _ help _ you. _ ”

“Say what you want about them, but those two really know how to draw in a crowd,” Tilla muses.  Beside her, Depre offers a blink. She’s learned over the years that that signals his agreement.  “You really think that that Bakura kid broke into every single Gringotts bank in the world?”

“I would like to say that it’s unlikely, but…” Depre pauses, thinking his words through, “if he really is the Thief King of legend, then I wouldn’t put anything passed him.”

Tilla snorts, “You know, the Thief King used to be my favourite hero growing up.  My mother read me that legend so often that I swear she had it memorized.” Then reality catches up with her and she remembers, “I guess that memory is fake, too.   _ Merlin _ , this is so fucked up.”

“During our training as Plants, they used to give us lessons on various legends and stories, to help us blend in with wizarding society better,” Depre says.  “Perhaps you got the same training and your memory of your mother is just an after effect of it.”

There’s a tightness to his lips that expresses anger, a tick in his jaw that betrayed his discomfort at the subject.  Tilla looks at him and sees the twenty-one-year-old kid that he is.  _ How much as the Department taken from us? _  She wonders.   _ Could we ever get it back? _

“What’s your name?” She asks as the radio station goes on commercial break.  Depre looks at her, his stare unblinking and focused - a sign of confusion. “I know that they gave you the name Depre Scott when you were assigned to me five years ago, so it couldn’t actually be your name.  I’m just wondering what…” Tilla trails off, her throat closing up.  _ Fuck, why did I never think to ask earlier? _  Did he ever remember what it was?

It takes a couple of minutes for him to answer.  By then, the new anchors are back and answering letters that have been flying in since the mages left the Confederation.

“Jonathon,” Depre says.  “There’s an ‘o’ at the end, instead of a second ‘a’.  I don’t remember my last name.”

“Jonathon?” Tilla repeats back.  She squints at him, “No offense, but you don’t look like a Jonathon.”

“I don’t feel like a Jonathon,” Depre answers, sounding surprisingly tired.  “Do you… remember your name?” When Tilla shakes her head, he asks, “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know,” she says truthfully.  Tilla turns to him, “Would you ever want to go looking for your family?”

Depre licks his lips and Tilla tries to ignore how that small gesture makes her heart race.

“I never thought that it would be a possibility,” Depre tells her.

“And now?”

He says nothing, leaning forward to listen to the radio again.  One of the anchors, the witch who’s usually the voice of calm on this show, is crying hysterically.  Tilla wants to roll her eyes, but instead pulls out the box of cigarettes and lights up another.

To her shock, Depre doesn’t call her on it.  Instead, he motions for her to pass him one. Tilla offers the box and his fingers brush hers as he picks one.  She watches as he places it between his lips and lights it with the tip of his wand.

The smoke sends Depre into a coughing fit.  He spits the cigarette onto the ground, bending over to get the crap out of his lungs.  And Tilla thinks that it’s the most absurd thing in the world. Honest and genuine laughter spills out of her and when Depre looks up at her, she can see the hint of a smile on his lips.

_ I love him _ , she finally allows herself to think.  That admission is all it takes for Tilla to cup Depre’s face in her hands and bring her mouth to his.

He is absolutely  _ wrecked _ when she pulls back, his eyes wide with shock and his jaw hanging open.  For a second, Tilla thinks that she should apologize, that maybe she’d gotten it all wrong.  But then Depre kisses her, hot and desperate, his fingers fisting in her hair as years of passion shatter whatever training the Department forced him to endure to strip him of his personhood, his humanity.  And Tilla kisses him back just as intensely because this is the only real thing that she knows about herself and she’s not about to let the Department take it from her too.

They stand and Depre presses his mouth to her neck, sucking bruises into her throat as he pushes her back into the opposing wall.  Tilla knocks the crate that supports the radio with her foot. The station suddenly jumps to some muggle pop song and Depre palms her tits through the stupid sundress that she’s wearing to the sound of “ _ ~Baby love me lights out, You can turn my lights out~ _ .”

“Condom?” Tilla whispers when he pulls away.

Depre’s voice sounds shredded when he says, “I don’t… I’m sterile, though.  They do it to everyone before--”

She undoes the button on his jeans and pulls his cock out as he hikes one of her legs around his hip.  Depre kisses her as he slides home, pulling away to breathe against her lips. His face is the most expressive that Tilla has ever seen, his eyes warm pools of brown.  When he moves inside her, she feels whole She feels loved.

Depre comes before she does, pulling out and dropping to his knees, pressing his face between Tilla’s legs and licking her until she sees stars.  She slides to the floor, her legs like jelly, and pulls Depre into a hug, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“I love you,” she tells him, not expecting to hear it back.

It’s a pleasant surprise when she does.


	22. Epilogue: Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trista Latner rises to her feet when she sees Holly, finishing up her conversation and walking toward the exit. She shoulder checks Holly on the way out, smirking the entire time.
> 
> “Nice hickey,” Latner says loud enough for Holly’s mother to hear. She wants to punch the bitch in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
> 
> Disclaimer (2): The iPad is developed and marketed by Apple Inc.
> 
> Warning: Mentions of sexual situations, nudity, minor character death, being buried alive, being burned alive, body horror, physical illnesses, past character death, child abduction, death threats, misogyny, classism, and slavery.

“That’s enough.  I’m good, I’m good,” Marcellous pants beneath her, his back coated in sweat.  Holly bites at his shoulder one last time, enough to leave a dark purple bruise, before pulling out and rolling off of him.  She unclips the strap on and slides it down her legs, dropping it on the ground with a wet thump.

Marcellous breathes into his pillows for a few seconds, his skeletal chest rattling with every inhale.  Holly runs the tips of her fingers over the ridges of his spine, counting every bone that she finds. She presses a kiss to his shoulder and when he tilts his face to the side, she can see his smile.

“You liked it?” She asks.  Marcellous Sidonia, son of Titus, hums in the glow of his pleasure.

He and Holly had been in and out of each other's bed for nearly two years, ever since Marcellous’s father had been appointed as Minister for Magic.  At first, Holly had only done it to ensure his loyalty - as the only trueborn heir that had been gifted to the last four Italian families, Marcellous was the key to the _Forum Romanum_.  But after a while, she’d come to enjoy his company, even desire it.

Marcellous arched his back and rose up onto his elbows.  She sees his skinny arms trembling and knows that he can’t do this for very long.  Holly’s jaw clenches in anticipation of the conversation she knows that they’re about to have.

“It won’t be long now before Luccennia Sorio forces the Ministry to appoint her in place of my father,” he says, his voice dripping with his disgust for the Vestal girl.  Holly can’t help but agree. In the chaos created by the mages of San Francisco in July, the _Vestalis Maxima_ had performed a silent coup, using the support of the more numerous unclean families to implicate various high ranking Ministry officials connected to the Department with ‘crimes against humanity.’  Now, just over a month later, the whole _Forum Romanum_ knew that it was only a matter of time before the girl would start the push to make her ceremonial position a little more concrete.

_‘For the good of the wizarding world,’_ Holly seethes, thinking of Luccennia’s announcement the other day.   _Like that upjumped bitch knows anything about what’s good for anyone._

“If Kiyoshi had just stuck to the plan, this wouldn’t have happened,” Holly growls.  “She gets emotional and now we have to deal with mages crawling out of the woodworks.  It’s just like it was back when I was a girl. You couldn’t breathe without seeing their filth.”

Marcellous lays back down, his arms finally giving out on him.  Holly strokes his pale, almost translucent skin. _He loses more strength every day,_ she thinks.  _How much longer will I have him for?_

“I would have loved to have seen you then, dressed in your armor and fighting in the Battle of Camhalnn.  Did they give you an army to lead? Did you slay King Arthur yourself?” Marcellous asks.

Holly smiles at the memory, “No.  I never led the army, but I squired for Rowena Ravenclaw, my cousin.  She killed Arthur, along with Sal. And when she knighted me afterward, it was the proudest day of my life.”  She closes her eyes, remembering kneeling in the mud as Rowena’s bloodstained sword tapped each of her shoulders and then her head.  Holly points toward her clothes have been piled, a blade with a bronze and azure hilt laying on it. “That used to be hers. _Justice_ , she named it.  Rowena gave it to me after her daughter disappeared, saying that I was all she had left.”

“I wish I could have met her,” Marcellous murmurs as he turns to face her.

“I’m glad you didn’t.  Rowena was the most beautiful creature dressed in leather and steel,” she kisses him lightly on the lips.  “You never would have even seen me if she had been in the room.”

“I doubt that,” he tells her.  Then his face hardens, “But we still need to do something about Luccenia.  The girl cannot be allowed to do what she wants. If she becomes Minister, she’ll repeal the Pureblood Protection Act and forces us to marry mudbloods and mages alike.”

_You’re just jealous that your bastard half-sister has taken your father’s position instead of you_ , she thinks but does not say.

“My mother made our plan nearly twenty years ago, so we always knew that there were going to be unforeseen consequences.  The Department had become too polluted and needed to be purged of its filth. We just never expected it to go this far. And now with the Ministries of the world raiding our facilities, we need to make sure that no information that could compromise us gets into the wrong hands,” Holly repeats what her mother had told her after the woman had ordered the burning of all their remaining records and the activation of reprogrammed Kill Codes.  “But now… The two mages who spoke at the conference, they worry me.”

“How so?”

Holly frowns, “The boy… Bakura, that was his name.  He reminded me of someone that I’d met long ago.”

“Who?” Marcellous frowns.

“The Spirit of the Millennium Ring,” she answers.  “The severed soul of the Thief King.”

Marcellous jolts upright in bed, the motion throwing him into a coughing fit so harsh that Holly has to reach for the nightstand and grab the cloth lying there.  When she brings the pale pink fabric to his mouth, it comes away bright red.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.  You’re not well enough,” Holly cautions him.

He ignores her, “You’re telling me _now_ that the Thief King was a mage!”

“All of them were mages, Marcellous.  I’ve told you this already. Witches and wizards didn’t exist until the start of the Roman Empire,” she snaps back, scared.   _If his memory is going along with his health, it won’t be long until…_

“You have?”  Marcellous frowns, confused.  He presses his palms into his eyes, “Damn it.  Damn it all. I keep forgetting.” He grits his teeth, “No matter.  There are more important things. If what you say is true, then the girl beside him must have been--”

“The Lady Pharaoh,” Holly finishes for him.

“If that bitch Luccenia isn’t stopped soon, you’ll have no way to fight,” Marcellous moves his hands away from his face and stares Holly directly in her eyes.  “You need forces. You need an army, my love.”

Holly’s heart skips a beat.   _Is he saying what I think he’s saying?_

“You are the granddaughter of the great Pompilia Sidonia, the first child of the final Pendragon Queen. You are the Daughter of Albion, Holly.  Pureblood houses great and small across the world would pledge their allegiance to you in an instant if you reveal who you are,” Marcellous implores.  He takes her hand in his, his fingers trembling with excitement. “And you would have me. For the rest of my life, no matter how short it may be.” He pauses, building up the courage to ask, “Hollarius Hufflepuff, will you marry me?”

_Yes_ , she thinks.  It's on the tip of her tongue, waiting to slip out.  But instead, she says, “I have to ask my mother.”

She sees Marcellous’s throat bob, realizing that he believes her answer to be rejection.  Holly kisses him for all that she’s worth, refusing to let him think that a moment longer.

“You were supposed to ask my parents first, lover.  But since you skipped that step, I have to do it now.  I’m sure that she’ll say yes,” she tells him and a smile breaks across his face.  Marcellous laughs and tugs her back into bed with him.

An hour later, Holly crawls out of her fiance’s embrace, being careful not to wake him.  She pulls her robes back on, the brightly coloured silks feeling like whispers across her freckled skin.  She flattens her short hair with her hands, pressing it back into place and hoping that it doesn’t look like she’s been rolling around in bed with Marcellous for most of the evening.  Finally, she straps _Justice_ to her belt and pads out of the room as quietly as she can.

The House of Sidonia had been Holly’s home since her mother had left Hogwarts nearly a thousand years ago.  Holly’s long-dead cousin, Flavius, had taken them in after the news of Salazar and Sephare’s death in France reached the castle.  Her mother had been devastated, fleeing the country with Holly, her only remaining child, and claiming refuge in the house of her mother.

Holly walked through the open courtyard of the temple, taking time to admire the statue of Pompilia Sidonia that stood in the center of the floor.  It was nearly twenty feet tall, the marble painted so finely that she almost appeared to be alive. At her feet was a fountain filled with crystal blue waters.  A few children were playing inside, splashing each other while their smiling parents looked on.

_Families from the lesser houses, unclean filth muddying the waters of my grandmother,_ Holly snarls.  She turns her nose up and walks past, her temper flaring when they do not bow.   _If they knew who I was, they would throw themselves at the floor and beg for my forgiveness._

Holly thinks of what Marcellous has promised her and hastens her steps.

She knows where her mother will be at this time of day, so Holly descends the steps into the dungeons below the floor.  Walking quickly through the dark corridors, she comes to a halt in front of a wall that supported a single torch. The light of flame licked the metal hilt, revealing the words _Focis, Domum, Familia_.

Holly taps her wand against the wall four times, then waits and does it again twice more.  The torch flickered before disappearing entirely, dissolving into the wall and taking the bricks with it until an archway was formed.  Holly walked through and into the tunnels below.

She knew the way by heart now, going deeper and deeper into the earth.  The ancient passageways had been carved by the Peverells for the original Vestal Virgins nearly two thousand years ago, weaving intricate designs beneath the entire _Forum Romanum._  They all lead to a single place, a vast underground cave that had once held the fifty wizarding clans of the Roman Empire.  Now it served as the Department of Mysteries division within the Italian Ministry and was called the Cave of the Eternal Flame.

Holly finds her mother there, sitting on an ancient stone bench in front of the massive crack in the stone wall.  And Helga Hufflepuff is not alone.

Trista Latner rises to her feet when she sees Holly, finishing up her conversation and walking toward the exit.  She shoulder checks Holly on the way out, smirking the entire time.

“Nice hickey,” Latner says loud enough for Holly’s mother to hear.  She wants to punch the bitch in the face.

“What the fuck what Latner doing here?” Holly says, rounding on her mother.  Unlike Latner who preferred to look scandalously young, Helga Hufflepuff kept her age somewhere in her forties and fifties.  Her red hair was streaked with grey and her face was just starting to show signs of wrinkles, but her blue eyes were as bright as ever.

“I made some arrangements this afternoon while you were… _busy_ ,” Helga tells her without looking up.  In her hands was a file, marked in the Labs pale yellow crest.  “And watch your language.”

“Arrangements?” Holly ignores her mother’s quip at her unladylike behaviours.  Rowena had never cared much how her squires spoke, so long as they called her Dame.  Holly had picked up the habit young and had never desired to break it.

“Yes.  Arrangements,” Helga continues, flipping open the files cover and flicking through the pages.  “Jermaine Sport volunteered to take Polyjuice Potion to disguise himself as Latner. He will be executed tomorrow in Latner’s place, god rest his soul.”

Jermaine Sport was the last of the Inner Circle aside from Latner.  Holly had  _liked_ him.

“Why?” She asks, incredulous.

“Jermaine was loyal.  I asked him to do it and he did,” Helga answers, turning another page.

“And that’s how you reward his years of service?!  Being burned at the stake in front of a world looking for a scapegoat? He worked beside us for two hundred years, mother!”  Holly shouts.

“And in that two hundred years, he learned that sometimes there things greater than yourself,” her mother tells her.  “He won’t suffer if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Holly cannot believe her mother sometimes.  She clenches her fists at her sides, trying to think rationally.

“Why are we saving Latner?” She asks, “I thought the whole reason why you sent your new husband to the Labs was so that he’d die taking down Kiyoshi - you know, because they weren’t _loyal_.  So why are we keeping Garrish’s slut around?”

“Trista Latner still has some use to us.  And when she no longer has anything to provide, then we can kill her,” Helga says.  Finally, she looks up from her file to examine Holly. She blinks, “Hollarius…? Is there something that I should know?”

Her mother had always been able to read her like a book.  Holly sits down on the bench and rings her hands, “Marcellous asked me to marry him.”

Helga looks surprised, putting aside her file, “And what did you say?”

“I said that I’d ask you.”

Her mother rolls her eyes, “I think that we’re far beyond the point where you need my permission to approve a betrothal, my daughter.”

“He promised an army if I did,” Holly tells her.

Helga thinks about it for a moment, leaning back and gazing up at the massive crack in the wall.  When she finally answers, it is in a voice that reminded Holly that her mother was over a thousand years old.

“Men who promise armies rarely do it with good intentions,” Helga says.  “If he is giving you the forces of House Sidonia, you need to remember that it is also an army that he can take away.”

“It isn’t just House Sidonia, though.  He said that if we reveal ourselves to the other four houses, they will pledge their allegiance as well--” Holly explains but is cut off before she can add in that the purebloods from other countries would follow suit.

“Three houses, not four,” Helga corrects her.  When Holly frowns in confusion, her mother reminds her, “The Zabini heir is currently living in exile.  After Titus Sidonia gave her father permission to marry that poor girl, I’m sure that she will want nothing to your darling fiance.”

“Between Sidonia, Seanus, and Papas, we won’t need the Zabini’s.  And the Sacred Twenty-Eight will follow, as they did when you founded the Coalition,” Holly implores.  “Besides, we need forces, mother. Especially if we’re going to be taking on the Three Kings.”

“The Papas will be extinct within the next twenty years.  Decimus’s health has declined to the point where he can barely get out of bed.  His only heirs right now are Titus and Marcellous Sidonia, through his daughter Pomponia,” Helga interrupts.  “The Seanus’s are next. The current ruling pair may have just managed to conceive a few months ago,” and Holly had remembered the nearly week-long party that had been thrown in celebration when the news had been announced, “but there’s no guarantee that there will be another child born to this generation for theirs to marry.”

“But you could fix that,” Holly shouts.  Helga goes very silent, very quickly. Holly continues, “Just use your divine weapon!  You could cure our allies and kill our enemies in one fell swoop. You could…” she thinks of Marcellous wasting away in their bed upstairs and nearly chokes up.  “You’ve kept the both of us alive for a thousand years, mother. Can’t you keep them alive a little longer.”

Holly doesn’t realize that she’s crying until her mother lifts her chin and forces her to look up.  Helga’s face is uncharacteristically soft, reminding her of the woman who’s once lived and laughed in Camelot’s walls, who gathered her students around her to teach them the properties of each magical plant in her classroom.

“After nearly a millennia of living, you have never married before.  I had to be sure,” Helga tells her. “You really love this boy, don’t you?”

Holly nods, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, “I do, mama.”

Helga sighs and drawing her into her arms.  Holly rests her head on her mother’s shoulder, knowing that this gesture of affection would not last.  She savours it for as long as she can, before pulling back and ending it on her own terms.

“A global civil war is just over the horizon, Hollarius.  Marcellous’s ambition to overthrow his bastard sister and avenge his father is just one step in his dream for the return of the Roman Empire - and you know that he will not stop there.  If you say yes, we will become involved in a war for wizarding superiority,” her mother says at last and Holly can feel her heart sinking in her chest. “I need you to do something for me first,”  Helga reaches over and drags her discarded file, handing it to Holly. “Tell me. What do you think?”

Holly frowns at the complicated jargon, wondering what her mother hopes to accomplish here.  The research that went on in the Labs was never something that she fully understood.

“It looks like Latner’s old research,” she answers.  “Something about cycles.”

“Yes.  Trista Latner was first given the opportunity to take the Flamel Test after she discovered the existence of mage reincarnation,” Helga explains.  “All mages seem to do it and if given enough time, you can track it. Here,” she points to an example on the page. “This sequence includes Tawas Wasti, Teodros Hakim, Tomisław Brzozowski, and Tristan Taylor, just to name a few.  All had the same power over volcanic forces. All had names that started with a T.”

Holly thumbs through the rest of the pages, trying not to think about Marcellous.  She notices the same pattern of similar powers and similar sounding names, over and over again, except…

“These three.  At the bottom,” she points to the sequences listed.  “Their names don’t match.”

“Exactly.  Latner didn’t know what to think about it at the time, but I want you to look at the last names on the list of these two,” Helga points to the ones on either side of the page, ignoring the middle.

Holly’s eyes flick to the bottom, frowns, and then it hits her.

“ _Ryou Andrews_ ,” she breathes and looks at the powers that each person in his sequence had exhibited.  “Invisibility, intangibility, power theft. And then…” she skims to the end of the next column, “ _Yuugi Mutuo_.  Energy manipulation.”

“Someone, maybe a god, was trying to  _hide_ the people in this sequence.  Why?” Helga asks in a way that tells Holly that she already knows the answer.

“Ryou Andrews was last seen in possession of the Millennium Ring.  And Latner said that Yuugi Mutuo probably had the Puzzle,” she answers, staring at the page.  “Latner found a way to track the sequences of the Three Kings…”

“Well, one-half of their souls at least.  The other halves were imprisoned within their respective items,” Helga corrects her.

But Holly is already looking at the bottom of the middle column, noting the powers of touch telepathy, healing, and something that Latner had labeled as ‘Armor (?),’ “There’s no name.  Not one that’s recent enough to be anyways. The last person in this sequence was… a woman named Ora, from some Indian tribe in Canada. She died in the late 1800s.”

“If Ryou Andrews and Yuugi Mutuo were both able to bring back the Thief King and Lady Pharaoh, then I seriously doubt that there isn’t someone out there already that’s capable of helping the King Commander return.”  Helga looks back at the crack in the wall, her eyes following its trail up to the ceiling, “We’re running out of time. The Rip will be closing soon.”

Holly nods, _When the last one closed, the Empire tore itself in half.  The east continued on, but… the west collapsed and caused the greatest dark age to ever plague Europe._

“We need to find this person.  As soon as possible,” Helga continues on.  “You and Latner are going to be working on that together.”  She holds up her hand to silence Holly protest. “I don’t care if you don’t like her.  After the stunt you pulled with the airplane and the Dementors, you need to learn to control your temper.”

“The goblin queen made a fool of us.  She had to be punished!” Holly shouts.

“And it won’t take much for those damn mages to spin a story around it to make them look like tragic heroes who were just defending themselves,” Helga says.  “You need to be better than this. _I_ need you to be better than this.”

Holly grits her teeth together, “Yes, mother.  And what are you going to do in the meantime?”

Helga’s smile did not reach her eyes when she reached into her pocket and revealed a small red stone.  Holly recognized it immediately as one of the hundreds of fakes that her mother had created over the years.

“I”m going to pay a visit to an old friend,” Helga tells her.  “It’s time that the story of the Flamels died, now that my husband is dead.”

Holly nods, understanding.  

“Any more questions?  No? Good. You may leave me,” Helga says, dismissing her.  Holly returns the files, rises to her feet and turns back to the tunnels.  But before she can disappear into them entirely, her mother stops her. “Hollarius.”

Holly doesn’t think that she can face Helga again, “What?”

“When you see Marcellous next, will you tell him that I am grateful for his offer.”

Holly waits for the inevitable, _But we are not interested._  It never comes.  There’s a soft smile on Helga’s lips.

Holly’s eyes widen with realization.  She sprints through the tunnels, up into the dungeons, and through the courtyard where the unclean are still playing at her grandmother’s feet.  Holly nearly crashes through Marcellous’s door, completely out of breath.

Marcellous Sidonia is standing on his own merit, his muscles filled in and his skin a healthy shade of pink.  He’s staring at himself naked in the mirror, watching his chest take one full breath after the other.

He turns to her, eyes wide with amazement, “Holly?  What…? What’s happening...?”

“My mother,” Holly explains, her eyes overflowing and her heart bursting with joy.  “She said yes.”

* * *

 Just over a month later, Odion pulls out Cassie’s chair for her to sit and ignores the weird looks that they are getting from the other patrons in the cafe.  She can’t blame them; they’re an interesting looking pair. Cassie was wearing her favourite pale blue sundress, a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, and pair of aviator sunglasses while working her way through two large meaty pizzas.  Odion was a seven foot tall giant with a fucked-up face half hidden by a hoodie that was too thick for the warm weather and jeans that were falling off his hips. He was also poking at a paper bowl of blackberry gelato with the world’s tiniest pink spoon.

“How is he?” She asks in French so that nobody to eavesdrop on their conversation.

Odion sighs and responds in turn, “He’s been better.”

“Has he been worse?”

“He slept for nearly eighteen hours yesterday, so… yeah, I guess.”

Cassie looks down at her food, “Well, at least he’s sleeping.  When we visited New Brunswick earlier in the year, I don’t think that he got any shut-eye the entire trip.”

“The doctor put him on new meds while you were away and he hasn’t adjusted fully yet,” Odion explains, his accent blurring in and out of his speech.  Cassie cringes. That only happened when Odion was actually worried.

“You know, I never asked.  But how did you turn out fine while Leo and Ishizu are…” she leaves the question hanging, because she has never had any idea how to approach this topic.  From what she understands, Clan Ishtar was _beyond_ fucked up.

“They started kidnapping locals who wandered off into the desert to use as servants a couple centuries ago,” Odion says without any hint as to how horrible that sounded.  “They must have taken me really young because I don’t really remember life before the tombs.”

“ _Merde_ ,” Cassie swears.

“On a brighter note, how was San Francisco?” Odion changes the topic entirely.

“Colder than you’d expect California to be,” she answers, trying not to think about she’d watched Almeida die and her sister almost refuse to grieve out of spite.  Cassie looked up Meron’s daughter on Facebook before her flight back to Pearson International. Salayish Lee was a cute kid with a good set of grandparents and a father that she’s never going to see again.  “The mages were nice. Though... “

“Though?” Odion prompts.

“There’s a pair of them that are… suspicious, to say the least,” Cassie says, pulling out her iPad and setting it up around her empty plates.  She wipes her greasy fingers off on her napkin and starts to the Jackal’s app. “You know anything about Seto Kaiba?”

Odion raises the only eyebrow he has left, “Kind of?  I know about a Gozaburo Kaiba, who was the head of KaibaCorp, that weapons manufacturing company that went bankrupt a few years ago.  They related?”

Cassie types furiously into the keyboard for a few seconds, calling up everything that they had on Seto, “Seto and his half-brother, Mokuba, were adopted by Gozaburo after their mother and Mokuba’s father died in a car accident.  There’s a history of physical abuse - suspicious hospital visits, neighbours making phone calls, concerned private tutors, etcetera, etcetera - before Gozaburo takes a fall off his balcony and dies. The two brother drain his account and go on the run, disappearing off the records until San Francisco happens.”

“Aside from the attempted murder, none of this is suspicious,” Odion counters.

“Normally, I’d agree with you.  Except he introduced me to a pair of sisters.”

Odion frowns, “That can’t be right.”  He grabs her tablet and turns it to face him, scrolling through the information on the screen.  When he finally looks up, he says, “Definitely doesn’t have sisters. Who were they?”

“Amanda Green, who I can track on our database.  She’s got, like, five _other_ sisters - her mom was really into the whole hippie, free love thing - but none of them are either Seto Kaiba or the other girl he introduced me to,” Cassie says.

“What was her name?”

“Atem.”

“First name or last?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie says.  “Either way, I can’t find anything on her.  Nothing. She’s got a fake ID, but I can’t find any information on this girl passed the date it was issued.  It's like she popped out of nowhere.”

“That’s not possible,” Odion implores.

“Yeah.  Her boyfriend, Bakura, is the same way,” Cassie leans forward and switches to a whisper.  “Odion, where there other clans like yours out there?”

Odion shakes his head, “None.  We were the only ones. And what makes you think that?”

“Their accents,” she says.  “They sound like yours.”

That causes the giant man to blink, “ _What?_ ”

“And the night I arrived, Seto invited over a bunch of friends.  Bakura and Atem showed up and…” Cassie pauses, thinking of the right words to say, “At one point, those two started speaking to each other in a different language and, Odion, I could have sworn that it was Isharin.  Here, I recorded it.”

Odion’s face is pale under his scars, tapping at her phone for the file and listening to it up close.  Cassie watches as his lips tighten up as the sound plays, before relaxing entirely.

“It’s not Isharin,” he answers.  “But it's close.”

From what Cassie understood, Isharin was the native language of Clan Ishtar, a combination of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and Akkadian that had been blended together over the course of three thousand years.  If what Bakura and Atem had spoken could even be considered similar, then there was still something very wrong with those two.

Cassie could read Isharin.  Leo had taught it to her for the days when he was too ill to type, since he’d programmed his computer to translate all other languages into his native dialect after he’d failed to learn how to read English.  But Cassie couldn’t actually _speak_ Isharin - there were way too many tongue clicks and pops incorporated into everyday words for her to manage.  Hell, she’d anyone outside of a native speaker who could.

In all honesty, she doubts that Odion is even Odion’s real name.  He might have changed it when he reached the surface so that other people could pronounce it.  It’s the same thing with Leo. From what she understood, he’d merely been typing the Isharin word for lion as his username for years, only for the translation program to spit out ‘Leo’ as a response.

They finish their meal and pay at the counter, ignoring the odd looks that continued to follow them down the street.  When they reach their apartment building, Cassie waves at the doorman. The poor kid must be new, because she doesn’t recognize him.  The boy lets out a soft  _meep_ when he sees Odion and almost ducks under the desk.

The trip up to the top floor is uneventful, except for when Mrs. Baker, a ninety-year-old lady who lived on the third floor, accidentally boards the elevator while thinking that they’re going _down_.  It takes a few minutes to get her all sorted out.  Cassie teases Odion the rest of the way up because Mrs. Baker may not be able to see the man’s scarred face through her ancient-looking bifocals, but that hasn’t stopped the old bird from flirting outrageously with him whenever she sees him.

Odion is in denial about the whole thing, but Cassie will break him eventually.

The elevator opens up directly into the penthouse after they provide both a fingerprint and retina scan.  The central sitting area is lit up by the afternoon sun, casting long shadows whenever it hit the spaced out sets of furniture scattered throughout the room.  There’s a kettle on the stove, hissing with steam.

Cassie almost panics, thinking that Leo had fallen before she hears his soft, raspy voice, speaking in the language that she’s never going to understand and sees him pulling the kettle off the hot the stove.

Odion tells her that Leo is somewhere between eighteen and twenty years old (Clan Ishtar ran on a different calendar, so dates were a bit hard to match up), but you’d never know that if you saw him.  He stood just under four and a half feet tall, weighted probably no more than ninety pounds, and had webbing between the six fingers on each hand. He wore a thick pair of sunglasses while he was out in the daylight, but Cassie had seen him without them a few times and knew that his eyes were sunken into the back of his skull and surrounded by bruise-dark skin, his pupils the size of quarters.  Leo had no body hair to speak of and covered his bald head with a bright yellow bandana.  His skin was grey and transparent enough for her to see the veins and arteries pumping blood beneath the surface.

He could only drink water if it had been boiled first, could only eat a specific kind of mushroom that he imported from Egypt, and would probably not live to see twenty-five unless he returned to the tombs of his birth.

“Cassie!” Leo wheezes when he spots her, his voice whisper soft.  He hops forward on his crutches and gives her a hug. Even though the three layer of clothing that he wore just to keep himself warm, she could still feel his ribs against her hands.

Leo switches into Isharin to greet Odion, who treats Leo with a kind of reverence that the kid has been trying to break him out of since Cassie met the two.  She watches Leo carefully, her eyes flicking from the crutches to the kitchen where the kettle is still sitting but no longer boiling. She walks over and pulls on a pair of disposable gloves before grabbing Leo a sanitized glass from the cupboard, filling it with steaming water.

“You didn’t have to do that.  I was going to get it myself,” Leo tells her and he hobbles back into the kitchen, jumping up into one of the chairs.  She presses the warm glass into his hands and he yelps at the heat despite the thick gloves he wears. There’s a box of disposable bendy-straws on the counter and Leo picks his way through them until he finds one that’s bright red.

_He’s using his crutches_ _and_ _he’s keeping the water down,_ Cassie thinks.  It’s a good sign, because there were sometimes entire weeks when Leo couldn’t walk and had to use his wheelchair, let alone the days when he couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed.  She should be happier, but it still left a bitter taste in her mouth. _It’s a small jump upwards on a scale that only goes down_.

Leo gets distracted from his drink when his phone pings, alerting him to a text message.  His whole face lights up when he reads it, the capillaries in his cheeks expanding ever so slightly.   _He’s blushing_ , she notes.

“You know,” Cassie says, leaning across the counter and watching as he purposefully ignored her in favour of answering his messages - something he very rarely did.  “You’ve made quite an impression on a pair of people back in San Francisco. Apparently, they said you knew them as Snake and Hawk?”

Leo pauses mid-text and squeaks out, “Pretty Boy and Baby Girl?”

“Uh huh,” Cassie smiles, knowing that she’s got him.  Regardless of Leo’s online fan base amongst the Jackals, she’s never actually seen him so rattled by a pair of admirers before.  “They wanted me to tell you to thank you for all of your help.”

“You… met them?” He asks and his phone pings another four times.

“I did.”

“Well?”

Cassie raises her eyebrow at him and smirks, “I mean, they’re not my type but--”

Leo groans, slamming his head into the table in frustration while holding his phone up over his head, “Fuck, they’re gorgeous, aren’t they?”

“You are so screwed, my friend.”

“ _Shiiiiiiit._ ”

They banter back and forth for a while, catching up on all that Cassie missed while she was away.  Leo holds her hand when she talks about Almeida even though she still doesn’t know what to think about the death of the pirate captain.  He even offers to take his glove off so that can feel a little bit of what she’s going through, but Cassie refuses. She doesn’t dare touch his skin, in case she has some virus that his lacking immune system can’t fight off.

Then, suddenly, Leo tenses.  His eyes glaze over as his soul slips from his body and into someone else’s halfway across the world.  Cassie and Odion sit in silence and wait for a reaction.

When Leo returns, he’s furious.

“They _fucking_ burned it all!” Leo shouts, “All the records that Palamo and Bruneau collected.  And they killed all the people inside!” He grabs his crutches and hops his way back to his room, “ _Fucking Department of Mysteries!_ Just when we think that we have something, they take it away!”  He pauses mid-step, “It had to have been an inside job. Cassie, does your mother still have the French Ministry employee records?  Odion, start making calls. We have to figure out who did this!”

She nods, hurrying to find her phone.  The Scorpion King had given her an order and as a Jackal, it was her duty to comply.

* * *

 “Firs’-years!  Firs’-years over here!” A great booming voice splits through the darkness. Amane turns and looks up, seeing a bright lamp bobbing over the heads of all the students pushing their way out of the train.  Looming in the shadows cast by the light is a giant harry face. Amane jumps back and bumps into Blaise.

“That’s Hagrid, the caretaker,” he explains as the massive man turns his attention toward another boy, addressing him by name and calling him over.  “Didn’t your brother tell you about him?”

“He did.  I just didn’t think he’d be so big,” Amane says.

“C’mon, follow me - any more firs’-years?  Mind yer step, now! Firs’-years follow me!” Hagrid calls again and Amane follows a set behind Blaise, ducking her head and feeling horribly embarrassed.  People are staring, pointing and whispering, but not at her. She swallows, feeling fear for the first time.

Slipping and stumbling down the steep, narrow path, Amane tries her best to focus on Blaise’s feet in front of her, stepping where he stepped and ducking when he ducked.  One of the boys next to them keeps sniffling, mumbling about a lost toad.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder.  “Jus’ round this bend here.”

Amane looks up and a gasp escapes her mouth.  They all stood on the edge of a massive black lake.  Across the water and perched atop a high mountain was a vast castle, bright windows illuminating the many turrets and towers.

Hagrid calls for them to climb into a boat, which draws Amane’s attention back to the water just in time to see a small fleet of dinghies rise out of the water.  Blaise grabs her hand and drags her into one. She clutches at the wooden seat, trying to keep her eyes shut to block out the rocking waves.

“You alright?” Blaise asks as two more first-year students climb in with them.  Amane nods even though its a blatant lie, pressing her leg into his and trying to ground herself.

“You’re… Blaise Zabini, correct?”

Amane cracks open an eyelid to see their companions just as Hagrid called for the boats to start moving.  The other boy in the ship has white-blond hair and a pale, pointed face.

“I am,” Blaise confirms with the tilt of his head.  “You’re Draco Malfoy. And…” he turns to the girl sitting to Malfoy’s left, “You’re Pansy Parkinson.”

“Who are you?” Parkinson asks, her pug nose scrunching up like she smelled something foul when she turns toward Amane.

But before she can answer, Amane hears Hagrid call, “Heads down!”

She barely manages to duck in time to avoid getting hit in the face by a curtain of ivy.  The boats float into a dark tunnel beneath the sheer cliff face and beneath the castle itself.  Amane closes her eyes again and keeps them that way until the bow hits something solid. They’ve landed in some kind of underground harbour, where the boats beached themselves on the rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there!  Is this your toad?” Hagrid shouts out and the crying boy from before shouts out a name, clambering toward the giant and holding out his hands for his pet.

They start moving again and Blaise purposefully leads Amane away from Malfoy, heading up toward the front of the line.  She glances to the side and sees a boy with black hair and bright green eyes that seemed to be trying to drink in everything that he could see.  The passageway opened up and they suddenly found themselves outside on a damp grass field in the shadow of the castle.

Hagrid leads them up a flight of stone steps and up to a massive, oak front door.  He asks, “Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”

The crying boy nods and the giant knocks three times on the castle door.  It creaks open and reveals a tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes.

“The firs’-years, Professor McGonagall,” Hagrid announced.

“Thank you, Hagrid.  I will take them from here,” the Professor said, drawing the crowd into the Entrance Hall.  Massive torches lined the stone walls of the castle and drew attention to a magnificent marble staircase that led to the upper floors.

Amane thought that they would head upstairs.  But instead, McGonagall leads them to a small empty chamber just off the main hall.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” the professor said.  “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses.”

Amane loses her focus then, drowning out McGonagall’s words and she took a look at her classmates.  Nearly forty girls and boys stood shoulder to shoulder, quivering in the cold room as the professor’s jaw finally clamped shut, turned on a heel, and left the room.

Amane’s stomach drops, suddenly terrified.  For months now, she’d imagined walking through the Great Hall, holding her head high and defiant, finding Igraine Selwyn or Sam Rowle in the crowd and giving them a piece of her mind.  But now, after the news coming out of the Confederation, she’s afraid.

Amane had been listening to the newest Celestina Warbeck song when the official broadcast had cut through.  By the end of the program, Amane had been reduced to tears, clutching at her mother’s arms while the Zabini’s looked on, unable to do anything to help.

_Why had they come so late?_ Amane kept thinking, remembering when the voice of an eight-year-old wizard-born mage came over the radio, announcing that she had been an brought to an island controlled by the Department and sentenced to execution.  In the articles that had come out in the days after the fact, it was revealed that Rebecca Hawkins had been given up by her parents around the same time that Ryou had been arrested. A sick feeling fills her stomach. _Had they known each other?  Why was Rebecca Hawkins alive and Ryou wasn’t?_

She’s so distracted by her musing that she almost misses it when twenty or so ghosts stream through the back wall.  They argue about someone named Peeves for a few minutes before McGonagall returns and leads them out of the chamber.

The Great Hall was just as Ryou had described.  Lit by hundreds of floating candles, students sat on either side of four long tables.  Amane trails behind Blaise, who keeps tugging her away from Malfoy. The pale blond boy seemed to have abandoned Parkinson, replacing her with a pair of big boned boys that flanked him like bodyguards.  Amane doesn’t like the look of them any more than she had Parkinson, but at least the girl had no idea who she was.

Amane catches a glimpse of Igraine Selwyn at the Slytherin table.  Ryou’s old girlfriend looks gaunter than her pictures had made her out to be, her brown hair laying lank at her shoulders and her cheekbones sharp against the shadows of her face.  Her neck is horribly scarred, as if something had been at her. Amane clenches her fist. _Ryou did that_.

McGonagall brings them to a halt before the central dais, atop which stood a final long table.  The on the other side, professors sat on large ornamental chairs and drank from golden plates and goblets.  Amane catches the eye of Albus Dumbledore, who she and her mother had had a meeting with not a week after the Confederation’s announcement.

Natsuki had explained that Amane wanted to attend Hogwarts, as her brother had done, and in spite of the danger.  Dumbledore had made empty promises left and right about the school’s reputation of safety, but her mother had cut him off and reminded him that Ryou had been systematically tortured beneath his roof for nearly five years and no one had lifted a finger to help him.  In return, Dumbledore’s blue eyes had gone cold as he reminded Natsuki that her son had crippled two students and murdered a third.

In the end, Amane had been allowed to come to Hogwarts on a conditional basis.  She would be enrolled under the guise of a foreign student from Japan, using her mother’s maiden name instead of her father’s.  The only people who would know her true identity would be the Headmaster himself, her eventual Head of House, and the matron, Madam Pomfrey who would be bleaching and dying Amane’s shortened hair a tea-brown hue about once a month.  But if Amane caused trouble or targeted the two remaining students from Ryou’s attack in any way, she would be expelled immediately.

The Sorting Hat is revealed and it sings its usual tune, describing its job of Sorting and giving a brief introduction to each house.  Amane almost _wants_ to be in Slytherin - not because of Igraine Selwyn or even Sam Rowle, Ryou’s former best friend.  Instead, she thinks of the parchment that had been tucked into Blaise’s luggage and of the four snakes that made up the border.  Amane grabs onto Blaise’s dark robes and holds on for dear life.

The Sorting begins.

Amane’s heart pounds as the Hat calls out “HUFFLEPUFF!” and Hannah Abbott skips over to the table of yellow and black, almost expecting the call for _Andrews, Amane_ to ring out.  But instead, Susan Bones is summoned to the three-legged stool and the Hat is dropped over her eyes.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” The Hat calls again and Bones runs off to join her friend.  Amane lets out the breath that she’s holding

The names keep coming, one after the other.  Amane recognizes a few of her future classmates from gatherings that her father had taken her to.  Lavender Brown was a pretty black girl from a pure-blood family who had been arranged to marry a Norwegian wizard since she was eight years old.  She had gone to Gryffindor, while Millicent Bulstrode, a pudgy bastard girl who’d been taken in by her father after her mother died a year prior, joined Slytherin.  James Andrews had been trying to get a match between Amane and Gregory Goyle in the months before receiving Viola’s proposal, so she is not surprised when he enters Slytherin as well.  And to everyone’s surprise, Stephanie Johns joined the ranks of Gryffindor House. The girl had been one of the orphans discovered during the French raid and had been adopted by a local wizarding family.

This Sorting seems to have everything - there’s even a near hatstall.  Hermione Granger, a girl with bushy brown hair and dark skin, silences the Hat for nearly four minutes before declaring her a Gryffindor.  

Then, when Megan Jones hops over to the table decorated in yellow and black, Professor McGonagall shouts out, “Kitamori, Amane.”

Her lungs seem to freeze, her heart stopping in her chest.  Amane’s legs move without her permission, climbing the steps up to the stool as if she was walking to her own execution.  She sits down on the wooden seat a little too hard and nearly knocks herself over. Her cheeks are red with embarrassment as a chuckle rises up from the tables below.  It’s the last thing that she sees before the Hat is dropped over her eyes and the world does dark.

“ _~Oh my~_ ,” says a small voice in her ear.  “ _~In all my thousand years, I don’t think that I’ve ever actually had a student attend under a name that_ wasn’t _their own.~_ ”

Amane jumps, rattling the stood again.  She nearly rips the damn thing off her head when it speaks again, “ _~Don’t worry, my dear.  I won’t tell anyone. Though I do offer my condolences regarding your brother.  He was a bright boy with a good future ahead of him. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.~_ ”

_If he was so smart, why didn’t you put him in Ravenclaw?_ Amane thinks, anger seeping into every pore of her being.

“ _~I considered it, but Ryou Andrews did not possess the intelligence that Ravenclaw normally wishes to cultivate.  He understood people and how they worked, what they wanted and what he was willing to give.~_ ” The Hat tells her, “ _~And at the end of the day, your brother_ asked _me to put him in Slytherin.~”_  Somehow, she can feel the Hat sighing, “ _~But we are not here to talk about him, are we, my dear?  Let’s have a look at you.~_ ”

Amane hopes that she gives the Hat the mental version of the finger.

The stupid thing chuckles at her, “ _~Oh, yes.  You are rife with anger, seething and bubbling up inside of you.  You feel alone, trapped by circumstance. Even in your own home, you are forced to keep secret after secret.  Your brother’s kiss. Your father’s murder--~_ ”

_You leave that alone!_ Amane shouts.

“ _~Defensive.  Protective. Normally, one might consider Gryffindor, but with you… no.  You don’t do this out of honor or some moral code. You do it out of--~_ ”

_Fuck off_ _,_ she squeezes her eyes shut.  Everything seems like it's burning, from her ears to the tips of her fingers. _Get out of my head!_ She is not going to cry because of some stupid hate.

The Hat continues to pick her apart, regardless of her feelings, “ _~Not particularly brave either.  Or all that smart - there’s none of your brother’s emotional intelligence in you, perhaps he got that from his mother.  You’re not cunning, you’re not chivalrous, you’re not even all that funny.~_ ”

The Hat pauses and then says the thing that she has been thinking for years, “ _~You, Amane Andrews, aren’t much of anything, are you?~_ ”  She feels the brim of the hat peal into a grin, “ _~And I think that’s why you’re going to be the most important person that I Sort today.~_ ”

_What?_ She thinks.

“ _~You’re a blank slate, my girl, and brimming with potential.  But you need to gain a sense of self outside of your brother, away from your father and mother.  You’re an outsider looking for a place to belong.~_ ” The Hat hums as it comes to a conclusion, “ _~Oh yes, I know just where to put you.  I've always been such a fan of irony.~_ ”

She feels the seam in the brim open wide and then pauses, “ _~Regarding your little quest, might I suggest that you start by paying a bit more attention to the ghosts.~_ ”  That’s the last thing that Amane hears out of the Hat before it shouts out, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

* * *

 Iris, their leader, pulls out a map that they’d nicked from a muggle bus station a few states over.  Its crumpled and stained with mustard, but Iris treats it like its made of gold. There are nearly eight people in their group, wearing ragged robes and down to their last Knut.  Mitchell keeps the snapped pieces of his old wand in his belt and a torn picture of his family in his wallet, testaments to remind him of why he needed to do this.

_If I go back, they’ll kill me.  I can’t… I can’t live with them anymore._

“The coastline should be over that way,” she tells them, pointing due south of their location.  “Once we reach it, the bridge should be to the east.”

Mitchell had been traveling for nearly three weeks at this point, having packed his bags the night that he’d heard the Confederation broadcast.  He’d hitch kicked all the way from Paris to London where he’d met up with Iris and her crew, who were determined to make their way across the Atlantic even if they had to fly.  It had never come to that, but the steely-eyed expression that Iris wore when she faced down the man that she’d bought their black market Portkey from had told him that she was not messing around.

Once they’d made it to the States, it was clear sailing.  Iris had made contact with someone on the inside who was willing to help.  She’d labeled their checkpoints and used her skills with muggle computers (“My dad worked in sales,” she’d told them the first time that she’d logged onto one at a local library) to make sure that the Jackals knew where they were and how many were in their party.

Once they hit the coast, they’re met by a married couple, a witch and a wizard from Russia who barely spoke any English, and their fifteen-year-old son who was twirling a spoon in his hand.  Mitchell watches as the metal seemed to bend, twist, and melt around the kid’s fingers before returning to its original shape. Something grabs hold of his heart and, for the first time in years, he allows the gills on the side of his neck to appear.  The boy’s blinding grin is worth everything in the world.

Iris leads them further east along the beaches.  The Russian kid talks Mitchell ear off the entire time, seemingly forgetting that they don’t speak the same language.  Behind them, Austin is whispering back and forth with Ruth, a twenty-eight-year-old girl who could talk to birds. She’s telling him about a girl back home who’s going to follow once Ruth gets settled.  Iris doesn’t allow anyone to give Ruth a hard time about loving another woman, saying that they’re all running from the same thing.

There is a gasp and Mitchell comes to a halt, staring out at the spectacle before them.  A massive red bridge crosses the bay, held up by thick metal poles taller than the walls of Beauxbatons.  A series of cables connect everything and muggle cars drive across it at breakneck speeds.

“We made it,” Iris whispers, her voice as soft as a secret prayer.  “I can’t believe… We did it. We’re safe.”

She’s a wizard-born mage.  So is Mitchell. Together, they stare out over the bay, admiring the Golden Gate Bridge for the marvel that it is.

And there, in the distance, is San Francisco.

**The End**


End file.
